


Bang Bang (You're Dead)

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Las Vegas, M/M, Murder Mystery, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-09 04:56:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11662080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: James Flint has a new partner, a hard-ass captain, a dead body, and too many suspects to count.  Making things more complicated is the fact that the deceased's young widower, John Silver, one of the prime suspects in the case, can't seem to stay away from Flint.  How will the detective team of Flint and Guthrie navigate the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas (without being distracted by all those strippers)? Read this incredibly pulpy fic to find out!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What started out as a drabble to fill a prompt has now turned into... this???? The rating is likely to change eventually. Also, looks like I'm writing my first ever slow burn and murder mystery, so please bear with me - I've never done this before!
> 
> Special thanks to Elle for the encouragement and the awesome fanart *hearteyes*

The loud knock on his door managed to penetrate through the music pumping into his headphones, really harshing his mellow.

“Flint!” 

“Oh, fuck.” His first instinct was to hit the light switch and pretend he wasn’t home.

“Flint! I know you’re in there, let me the fuck in!”

Ruefully, he paused the Morcheeba track he’d been listening to and removed his earbuds. “Coming, coming, keep your pants on,” he muttered, walking barefoot towards the door. 

“Flint!”

“Eleanor,” he greeted his coworker as cordially as he could. “You can’t enter unless I invite you.”

“I’m not a fucking vampire, Flint,” she shouldered past him, her long gown swooping in behind her. “Here,” she shoved a black garment bag into his outstretched arms. “Put this on. You have exactly twenty minutes to make yourself presentable. I’m not going to this fucking gala by myself, and if you bail on this, so help me, I _will_ have you fired.”

“You can’t… I’m busy,” he attempted lamely. “What fucking gala?”

“The one I texted you about,” Eleanor spoke, calmly applying her lipstick in front of Flint’s hallway mirror. “Nineteen minutes. Chop chop.”

“My phone’s been off all day. Really, email is the best way to reach me.”

“You received five emails about this from Teach,” Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I know this because I was copied on all of them.”

“I haven’t checked my work email today.”

“It was during the workweek. Nice try. Put the tux on.”

“It’s probably not even my size.” Flint gave it one more try, giving Eleanor a look full of both pathos and panic.

“It is your size according to your tailor. And before you ask how I know about your tailor, I will remind you that we’re both detectives. Eighteen minutes.”

“Please,” his hand landed gently on her arm. “Please, don’t make me socialize.”

She glanced him up and down with a look that loosely approximated pity, or perhaps disappointment, Flint wasn’t entirely sure which emotion he was actively attempting to elicit.

“It’s not up to me,” Eleanor shrugged. “You know Teach wants us to be there to represent the department. And you’re the ranking officer after him, so you’re coming, or I’m handcuffing you and dragging you there against your will.”

Flint hung his head. He had such a delightful evening of chow mein and Morcheeba scheduled. Maybe even going online. To do something other than _work_.

“John Silver will be there,” Eleanor said softly, her lips almost brushing his ear lobe.

“Who’s she?” Flint smirked.

“You _know_ who he is,” Eleanor slapped his arm. “Fifteen minutes, Flint. Or I leave alone and tell Silver that you wear Teletubby pajamas.”

“I do not!”

“He’ll believe me!”

“Eleanor!”

“Fourteen minutes!”

“You’re evil,” Flint’s shoulders sank in defeat.

“I learned from the best,” she winked at him and helped herself to his bar, pouring a generous glass of his best scotch.

“I’m asking Teach to reassign me to a new partner after this,” he grumbled, unzipping the garment bag and taking out the tux. Even by looking at it, Flint knew it would fit. Damn his harpy of a partner.

“Not on your life. You adore me.”

“It’s true,” Flint sighed in resignation. “But for the record, I have a terrible taste in people.”

***

It had begun several months ago with the usual text from their Captain. 

_Body at The Lion. Take Guthrie with you._

The Lion had been a relatively new, lavish construction on the Strip, which Flint was only aware of for two reasons: the first being that it was shaped like the least subtle phallus in the history of highrises, the second that it featured the hottest all male revue in town and Flint was not a disinterested party in this regard. 

Guthrie had been his new partner, a rookie, and a legacy no less. Her father had run his own division in Vegas for twenty years before retiring suddenly to spend quality time on a tropical beach somewhere with a woman thirty years his junior. Guthrie definitely had a chip on her shoulder about daddy. Flint missed his old partner, Hal Gates, and resented his inconvenient insistence on reaching retirement age.

The body in question had been of one Benjamin Hornigold, the owner and proprietor of The Lion, and an old college pal of Hal’s to make things even more complicated. Granted, the law enforcement community was tightly knit in Vegas, and it was difficult to kill anyone without a quarter of his acquaintances being somehow involved in the fiasco.

“Looks autoerotic,” Eleanor pronounced leaning over the bluish corpse.

“The man was a multimillion dollar mogul,” Flint pointed out to his new partner, “with a mutimillion reasons for someone to want him dead. And your first thought is he did himself in by masturbating?”

“He’s naked with a belt tied around his neck,” Eleanor pointed out with an unflappable expression. “What do you need? His hand on his dick?”

Flint squinted. That feeling in his chest was a definitive pang of sudden affection for the young woman. Disturbing.

“Could’ve been staged,” he muttered, in lieu of any approbation. 

“I guess we’ll have to wait for the ME’s report,” Eleanor shrugged. “What’s his deal anyways? Do you know what he was into? Drugs? Hookers?”

Flint had, meanwhile, got caught up in examining the photographs on the departed’s mantlepiece. It would appear that Benjamin Hornigold had been a newlywed, judging by the smiling and gaudily framed photos of him with a piece of twink ass so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed that Flint almost snorted. There was something oddly familiar in the young groom’s face that Flint could not quite place, but perhaps his old partner would know.

He sent Gates a quick text _Hornigold’s dead. RIP. Who’s the curly haired twink?_

A reply came a few minutes later. _I see your bedside manner still needs work. Couldn’t have told me the news in person?_

 _Some of us still have to work for a living_ , Flint retorted and then, grudgingly added a ;) to the message.

_I assume you mean his new husband. John Something. He was a showboy in that Down Under thing._

Flint thought about this for a few moments. The Thunder from Down Under had been playing at The Lion since the hotel and casino opened their doors. Of course, the kid’s familiar face was suddenly making a lot of sense: Flint must’ve seen him on a billboard before. Although, to be fair, his face was probably _not_ his most memorable feature if he was in that show.

 _You mean he’s a stripper?_ he texted Hal. Holy fuck, Hornigold married one of his strippers.

“Flint?”

“Huh?” He suddenly remembered he wasn’t working this case with Gates. 

“Did you find something?”

“We need to bring this John Whatsit character in for questioning,” he’d replied, turning the wedding photo towards her and pointing at the young groom’s brightly grinning face.

“Holy shit, that’s John Silver! Hornigold married a stripper?” Eleanor smirked. “Figures.”

Flint tried not to take it personally that as a young person she had better facial recall than him. 

“So, what do you think?” she continued. “Do we have a Black Widow on our hands? A femme fatale?”

“Femme means woman,” Flint corrected her with a dour expression.

“Excuse me. An homme fatale,” she grimaced.

Flint did not resent her boarding school education in the least. “Why are you a cop again?” 

“I like handcuffs.”

Flint bit his lower lip to keep himself from smiling.

 _Are you sure it wasn’t autoerotic?_ Hal’s last text blinked up at Flint from the screen. Perhaps working with Guthrie didn’t need to be that much different than working with Hal had been.

***

“There he is, Vegas’ most eligible widower,” Eleanor had bumped her shoulder into Flint’s and he frowned into his champagne. “Go talk to him. Maybe you can get him to donate some of his hard earned dough to a good cause.”

“This is ridiculous,” Flint muttered, steering his partner towards the hors d'oeuvres and away from John Silver’s beaming face. “You told me yourself you still think he’s guilty.”

“I said he _looks_ guilty. He was exonerated, as Teach keeps reminding us.” Eleanor scooped two nondescript things onto her plate and attempted to feed one of them to Flint. “Escargot, darling.”

“Quit it,” Flint shook his head. “I am not putting that slimy shit in my mouth.”

“Spoken like a dedicated gay,” Eleanor teased, eating both the snails herself. “Your loss, these are delicious.” Eleanor looked over Flint’s shoulder towards the back of the room, where John Silver was still shaking hands and shamelessly flirting with anything that moved. “He’s not even trying to look like he’s in mourning. I mean, what kind of criminal acts like that?”

“One with a bulletproof alibi,” Flint replied, helplessly looking for an hors d’oeuvre that he could eat that didn’t look like it might wiggle out of his mouth at will.

“How bulletproof is his alibi, really? He spent the night with a fucking madam!” Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I think I need to interrogate her again.”

“Who? Max Nassau?”

“Oh is that her name? I forgot.”

“I’m sure you also forgot how pretty her eyes were and how great her tits looked in that bustier she wore, entirely coincidentally, when we brought her into the station for questioning?”

“I’m not comfortable with you talking about her bustier like that, Flint.”

“Yeah,” Flint all but snorted. He’d never met anyone more foul than Eleanor Guthrie, and he loved it. It was like watching a Pre-Raphaelite cherub open its mouth and pour forth a veritable symphony of filth in D major. “Max is one of the most respectable business moguls in Vegas. If it’s good will you want, don’t fuck with Max Nassau.”

“Hm, or perhaps the opposite? If I want to engender good will, then Max Nassau is _exactly_ the person I should fuck?”

“I think during an ongoing investigation we’d both do well to stay the fuck away from two persons of interest, don’t you think?” Flint drank his champagne again, but more militantly. He could feel John Silver’s eyes on the back of his head. No one else looked at the back of his head the way fucking Silver did. He was going to get suspended and possibly fired and it was all because a twink who _pretended_ to be Australian to get a stripping gig couldn’t control himself in public.

***

The first time he’d met John Silver had been rather memorable. He’d been back at the precinct, going through endless paperwork, when Miranda Barlow walked up to him and scowled down with the gamiest game-face he’d ever seen.

“I’m here on business,” his best friend said, holding up her hand to interrupt his enthusiastic greeting. “I understand you wanted to interview my client. He is here of his own free will to give a statement.”

“Who’s your client, counselor?” Flint asked, batting down the urge to smile.

“Mr. Silver.”

“You mean Mrs. Hornigold?”

“Well then, if you need to grab your rookie for this, I’ll be grabbing one of your terrible coffees from the lobby.”

Hornigold had been an asshole, and Flint could not exactly say he was sorry to see him go. Which made playing good cop exceptionally easy.

“Lieutenant Flint,” Miranda began to speak as Flint and Eleanor entered the interrogation room. “This is my client, John Silver. We understand you have some questions for him which relate to the unfortunate and untimely death of his husband, Benjamin Hornigold.”

“Never took his name, huh?” Flint winked at Silver.

“I was a dancer,” Silver pursed his mouth coyly. “His name was Hornigold. Even a silly boy like me could tell it would be a tad much.”

“Could you state your full legal name for the record?” Eleanor asked, clearing her throat and pushing the record button on the audio equipment.

“John Silver.” He flashed a bright smile at Flint and nodded towards his partner. “Who’s she?”

“She’s Guthrie.”

"Is she your beard?" 

Eleanor fixed him with an ice-cold stare. "You have a very smart mouth Mr. Silver. I'm sure your new inmate friends will find many clever uses for it." 

"Is she threatening to arrest me?” Silver glanced from Flint to Miranda and back at Flint. “Because if anyone's putting me in handcuffs, I was hoping it'd be you, Lieutenant."

“John, please,” Miranda’s quiet voice interfered. “Let’s stick to only the facts. You will strike that outburst from the record,” she nodded towards the recorder.

“This isn’t a court proceedings. His inappropriate flirting stands duly recorded,” Eleanor replied.

“My client was not flirting,” Miranda raised her voice.

“We’ll let a jury decide that, shall we?”

“Ladies… Detectives… Counselors… Please,” Flint groaned. Watching his best friend and his partner having what could only generously be described as a pissing contest was quickly elevating his blood pressure.

“Where were you the night of October 2nd?” Eleanor continued, wasting no time.

“I was at my good friend’s apartment, attending a birthday party she was throwing for… a friend,” Silver replied.

“Could you be more specific?” Flint asked, his face already sinking. A party meant there were multiple alibis for Silver’s whereabouts. It also meant having to interview more than a dozen people. “Who is your friend? Where was the party?”

“The party is wherever you want it to be, Lieutenant.”

“Let the record show Mr. Silver was once again not flirting with the interrogating officer,” Miranda attempted, shaking her head. Eleanor laughed. “John, please,” Miranda pleaded with her client. “Focus on answering the questions.”

“I was at the apartment of Max Nassau,” Silver replied, “who was throwing a birthday party for her girlfriend Anne Bonny. I arrived at 9pm and I did not leave until the following morning. Any number of people can confirm this, but of course you’d have to pry their names out of Max’s little black book.”

“We’ll be sure to get a warrant,” Flint said sourly, making notes.

“A warrant? You’re not even sure it was murder!” Silver exclaimed and folded his arms defiantly over his chest. “Old Benny had a heart condition, you know. If I’d fucked him to death, would you book me for manslaughter?”

“Did you fuck him to death?” Flint asked, licking his lips.

“John, please, you’re off topic again,” Miranda interjected. “Are you asking my client if he killed his husband? For the record?”

“Did you kill your husband?” Eleanor asked, looking bored.

“No. I did not,” Silver responded definitively.

“Well, there you have it.” Miranda began to rise. “If you have no more questions for my client…”

“Please, sit down, counselor,” Flint requested, giving Miranda a disappointed shake of the head. “Do you know anyone else who may have wanted your husband dead?” he continued to query Silver, who was leaning back in his chair and playing with his unusually large hands. 

“Well, let’s see,” Silver threw back his head, ostensibly attempting to get a kink out of his neck, giving Flint a nice view of the entire length of it, along with his exposed collarbones. “There is the mob, of course. Benny ran a casino and we all know what that means. Any and all of the public officials he’d had to bribe or possibly blackmail to get all his licenses. Any and all of the dancers he might have creeped on over the years and their respective loved ones. His estranged three to five children, whom he cut out of the will. And, oh, of course, last but not least, his business partner, whom he was also occasionally fucking before we got married. Did I leave anything out, you might be wondering…”

“Business partner’s name?” Eleanor asked, scribbling furiously in her notebook.

“Douche… something?”

“Dufresne?” Flint sighed. If there was a bigger shitbird than Hornigold, Melvin Dufresne was such a one.

“We called him Mellie,” Silver grinned. “Mellie the Douche.”

“And which dancers might your late husband have creeped on, to the best of your recollection?” Eleanor went on.

Silver sighed demonstratively, looking up at the ceiling as if to refresh his memory. “Now, I’m not saying he would ever hurt a fly, but I suppose you might as well start with William Manderly.”

“William Manderly?” Flint frowned. That name did not ring any bells.

“He means Billy Boner,” Eleanor smirked.

“Oh god,” Miranda quietly exhaled.

***

“This is ridiculous,” Eleanor munched on a handful of M&Ms while staring at her computer. “I’ve been checking out Silver’s credit card activity, and would you believe the fucker is redecorating? His poor fuck husband’s body is barely in the grave and he’s buying all new furniture.”

“Can’t blame the guy. I wouldn’t want to keep the furniture where my husband might have been murdered,” Flint shrugged.

“And going out on the town every night, buying bottle service for his homies… I presume… Spending hundreds of dollars at spas and… what the fuck is this? He just ordered a lavish bouquet from the most expensive florist in town.”

“Maybe he had a piece on the side?”

“Does this seem like the behavior of someone who just lost a spouse to you?” Eleanor asked, pointing at her screen.

“Doesn’t particularly seem like the behavior of someone who murdered a spouse either. Too obvious.”

“Double bluff?” Eleanor suggested.

“Delivery for a Lieutenant Flint?”

Everyone turned around to behold an exorbitant bouquet that seemed to levitate in mid-air.

“What the fuck?” Flint leapt to his feet.

The bouquet approached. “Are you Lieutenant Flint?” asked a disembodied voice from behind the tower of lilies and orchids. Flint whimpered.

“He is,” Eleanor replied with a shit-eating grin.

“For you,” the voice said, placing the gigantic floral arrangement right on top of Flint’s mountain of paperwork.

“Please tell me there’s a card,” Eleanor was out of her seat and rummaging through the flowers like a truffle pig. “Yes!”

“Give that back, you brat!” Flint tore the little card out of her hand. “These are not for you!”

“Bet you fifty bucks they’re from Silver.”

“I’m not taking that bet.”

“Oh god, they’re from Silver. You’re gonna get so suspended.”

“Stop looking happy.”

“He loooooooves you, he wants to kiiiiiiiiss you,” Eleanor sang, dancing away from his desk. “I’m gonna go interview the madam!” she shouted from the door.

 _Please let me buy you dinner. J._

That was all the note said. Flint didn’t have to be a detective to figure out who it was from.

***

He had spent months avoiding Silver, ducking his calls, giving away his lavish gifts so as not to appear inappropriately biased. Flint even contemplated arresting him for stalking, had it not occurred to him that it was exactly the way to end up playing right into Silver’s gropey little hands.

“I’m not falling for his shit, Guthrie,” he’d been saying to Eleanor at the goddamn gala. “I know guys like him. Use up one mark, can’t wait to move on to a new one.”

“We ruled him out as a suspect and now he’s one of the richest men in town,” Eleanor needlessly reminded him. “Play nice.”

“He’s still part of an ongoing investigation,” Flint whispered.

“So, go out with him. Pump him for information. Good old fashioned detective work.” She winked and let go of Flint’s arm. “Go get him, daddy.”

“I hate you,” Flint muttered, just as he felt a warm hand on his shoulder and he braced himself against the eventuality of having to look into John Silver’s devilish blue eyes. Much though he tried to be, he was by far not indifferent to them.


	2. Chapter 2

Captain Edward Teach had been on the Vegas police force for almost two decades, and Flint’s superior, which was why there would be no excuse for Flint to punch him in his smug, bearded face. It was still not acceptable, however, for Teach to be speaking to them in such a _tone_.

“... your maverick shenanigans like a couple of two-bit whores!” their Captain had been yelling. The door was closed, but Flint could pretty much feel the rest of the precinct’s ears pressed against it on the other side. “Why do I pay you to frequent stripjoints and whorehouses? So that you could half-ass this investigation?! Is this how you honor your father’s legacy, Guthrie? With gross incompetence?! And you - Flint! Flint, why the fuck are you the ranking officer here if instead of putting this case to bed, you’re putting one of the prime suspects into yours?!”

“With all due respect, _sir_ ,” Eleanor finally cut in when digging her nails into her own palms began to draw blood. “There are more suspects in this case than there are fish in the fucking sea! And Silver is the only one we’ve been able to definitively rule out!”

“And I’m not putting him in my bed, fuck’s sakes,” Flint finally spoke.

“You’re not? Then why does half of Las Vegas report the two of you were seen gallivanting together in some of the finest establishments on the Strip?”

“He’s doing it for the investigation,” Eleanor said quietly.

Teach looked from her to Flint, entirely unconvinced. “Riiiiight, and my third wife was a donkey.”

“Rude,” Eleanor muttered. 

“Excuse me?” Teach bent forward.

“Sexist,” Eleanor said loudly. “Like, really sexist. Makes me wanna call my union rep and HR.”

Flint cast her a look of horrified admiration. Teach leaned back in his chair, for the time being satisfied with the dressing down he’d given them.

“Tell me about the other suspects,” he said, as if nothing at all had been mentioned about HR or donkeys.

“We questioned William Manderly,” Flint began the list at the top, with the first person they interviewed after Silver. “He is the lead star of the Thunder from Down Under at The Lion.”

“Go on,” Teach said.

“He could definitely have done it _physically_ ,” Eleanor cut in. “The guns on that man should be registered as lethal weapons.”

“She means his arms,” Flint explained. “But he doesn’t strike me as the murdering type. He’s pretty clean cut, never had a run-in with the law, not even so much as a speeding ticket. He was still living with his mother before joining the revue.”

“You mean like that guy in _Psycho_?” Teach smirked.

“Touché, Captain.”

“But he also had an alibi. He was on stage the night of the murder. Roughly 300… um… _inspired_ audience members saw him there,” Eleanor continued. “They saw _all_ of him there.”

“Thank you, Detective Guthrie,” Teach coughed a bit.

“Then there were Hornigold’s four children,” Flint went on, “all of whom were cut out of the will, so the motive is suspect, in that it wouldn’t have been for the cash. Revenge, however, we all know is a powerful motivator.”

“But none of them were even in Vegas at the time of daddy dearest’s death,” Eleanor supplied. “Verifiably.”

“Who was left in the will?”

“In the absence of a prenup, his entire estate reverted to his lone heir - the husband,” Flint explained with a slight blush.

“Your boyfriend,” Teach assisted.

“He’s not my boyfriend. We’re not a thing. It’s not…”

“You really do protest too much, Lieutenant,” Teach grinned, obviously very pleased with himself.

***

They weren’t dating. It was just one detective having dinner with his very persistent, fabulously rich, undeniably handsome stalker. A couple of times at most. With no physical contact other than a perfunctory handshake. And Flint hadn’t even gotten around to asking Silver the one thing about the elephant in the goddamn room.

“So…” Flint moved his food around his plate. Whatever Silver had ordered for them was too pretty to eat anyways.

“So?” Silver had leaned forward, his foot bushing against Flint’s ankle under the table so casually that both men pretended not to notice.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Flint said, which was usually a prelude to a person saying something rude. “But you and Hornigold: what’s the story there?” 

“Do you still think I killed him?” Silver drew back, obviously offended, or else feigning it incredibly adaptly.

“No, I… I mean, why did you marry him?” Flint frowned at himself. It was no kind of question to ask a person, no matter what you thought of him deep down.

Silver laughed, an easy and light laughter, his eyes never leaving Flint’s face. “Me? I can’t help myself. I see an opportunity, I take it. It’s a sickness. Truly.”

“So, you admit it was an opportunistic marriage?”

“Of course not. I was deeply in love with Benny.” Silver laughed again, clearly very amused by Flint’s confused and exhausted expression. “Look, Lieutenant. You’re an intelligent man. You read people for a living. Tell me, do I seem like the kind of man to you who would marry someone for money?”

Flint leaned back in his chair and took Silver’s entire demeanor in with an expert eye. “Well, from everything I know of you, you’re certainly not a beacon of sincerity.”

Silver pressed a hand to his heart. “I’m hurt, Lieutenant.”

“You pretended to be Australian to get into a strip show, which tells me you’re a liar and have no shame.”

“Shame is overrated,” Silver shook his head and resumed his meal. “It is a shackle cast upon us by society, one which we should all strive to shake off, the sooner the better. Try the beet salad, it’s delicious.”

Flint lost his train of thought, his mind carrying him far away from his plate of daintily arranged legumes and out of the crowded restaurant. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

“Am I boring you? Perhaps I should take off my clothes. I’m usually better at holding one’s attention when I’m in the nude.”

“Is that how you got Hornigold’s attention?”

“I told you, the man was handsy. He had a habit of having things go his way, as many men do who were born to power and riches. There isn’t a man in the troop who at some point wasn’t propositioned by him. Logan, Joji, Dooley, Dobbs, heck even Muldoon, and he’s just the wardrobe guy!”

“But you were the one who got him to put a ring on it?”

“I was the one who rode him hard and put him away wet.” Silver licked his lips, his eyes falling to the dip in Flint’s collar where the top button sat titillatingly undone. “Men are such simple creatures, Lieutenant. We have such basic needs. To feel wanted, needed. Admired, in some cases.”

“Is that what Hornigold wanted? Your admiration?” Flint spoke through parched lips.

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” Silver said, wiping his lips with his napkin. “Honestly, death is so sad, it depresses me. Here one moment, gone the next. Makes you want to seize life by the balls while you’re still kicking, doesn’t it, Lieutenant?”

“And what is it that you think I want, then?” Flint finally asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

“You…,” Silver fixed a pensive look upon Flint’s face, his deep azure eyes shaded by the canopy of his thick lashes, “are a mystery to me, Lieutenant. There must have been a time when you had originally started on this quest - I mean your profession - that you had to have been chasing some golden dream. But now, I suspect it is mere habit that keeps you going. What you need is a little excitement in your life,” he concluded.

“Oh, thank you, my life is quite exciting enough as it is,” Flint chuckled. “I get shot at quite regularly.”

“Yes, and when is the last time you actually felt in mortal fear when getting shot at?” Silver fixed him with a long look that made Flint feel suddenly naked, exposed in such a way that he shifted in his seat and closed his legs. “When’s the last time you allowed yourself to feel truly vulnerable?”

“Vulnerability is a privilege of the trusting,” Flint said. “And I don’t believe you’ve ever felt a moment of it in your life.”

“You don’t know what I’ve felt in my life,” Silver said. It was a mere statement of fact, yet somehow it cut Flint like a blade and took the air out of him. No, he did not know, he knew nothing about the man sitting across from him. Only that he was breathtakingly beautiful and somehow far more intelligent than Flint had previously credited.

***

There was another bouquet on his desk, one far less lavish than the previous, and consisting entirely of cornflowers as blue as John Silver’s eyes. The accompanying note only said _Please have dinner with me again_ and Flint could not help but smile.

“Have you banged him yet?”

“Jesus, Guthrie!” Flint turned to face his partner. “You don’t have to be so crude.”

“So you haven’t banged him?”

“For the record, it’s none of your business. And of course not. He’s…”

“A person of interest. Right. You’re a bore.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Flint grinned sheepishly.

“You wanna interview a mob boss today?” Eleanor shoved a manila folder into his hands with a name on the tab that rang only too many bells.

“Balls. Woodes Rogers?” Flint shuddered. “What’s _he_ got to do with this whole mess?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe everything,” Eleanor shrugged. “You heard what your twink said though. Hornigold was up to his golden nuggets in mob business. Several of the men in his club specifically fingered Rogers as one of his frequent associates.”

“I was hoping to follow up with Mellie the Douche on some things,” Flint said, flipping through the folder in his hands. Rogers’ smug face scowled at him from a black and white photo.

“Perfect. Rogers is going to be at the high roller table at The Lion tonight. We can kill two douches with one stone?”

“God, I love it when you multitask,” Flint beamed.

They were on their way to Hornigold’s (technically now Silver’s) hotel when his phone buzzed with repeated insistence.

“Booty call?” Eleanor winked, turning the wheel towards the entrance and waving off the valet with her badge.

“It’s Hal,” Flint replied, eyeing his screen suspiciously.

“So… booty call?”

“God damn it, Guthrie.”

 _Don’t fuck him_ , the text message blinked up at him. Flint scrolled down to read the next message. _Dammit Flint you live in the city of sin you can find someone else to fuck not your own murder investigation suspect._ Flint frowned, his thumb hovering over the keyboard. “Fuck you” seemed like a succinct enough reply when his phone burped at him again. _Come over some time it’s been a while._

“Can I see?” Eleanor leaned over the passenger seat.

“Abso-fucking-lutely _not_!” Flint pushed her off, pocketing his phone and unbuckling his seatbelt. “Fucking hell, Richard Guthrie was a terrible father. You have no manners.”

“Ouch,” Eleanor pulled back. “That’s a low blow, Flint, even for you.”

“Oh, sack up, Guthrie!”

“Vag up, Flint!”

“What are you - two?”

“What are you - two hundred?”

“You can do this all day, can’t you?”

“How do you think I made detective so fast? Wait, don’t answer that, you asshole, I can read your inappropriate thoughts.”

“What? I was gonna say gumption!”

“Uh-huh.”

***

Melvin Dufresne, or Mellie the Douche as he was lovingly called by the cast of Thunder, was nothing if not a huge fucking weasel. In fact, to call him a weasel was an insult to weasels, adorable creatures far too cute to deserve to be so maligned. Not that Flint would ever admit this aloud. 

“Of course, I love the new management,” the weasel was saying, walking down the hallway with them towards the room where the high rollers gathered to square off against the Lady Fortuna. “What’s not to love? Mr. Silver is hardly ever here, so I get the run of the joint. Benjamin… Hornigold was a lot more hands on.”

“We heard,” Flint mumbled.

“This way, please, detectives. Security has informed me that Mr. Rogers arrived about half an hour ago.”

 _Fucking weasel,_ Flint thought, bitterly.

“You won’t be needing me to enter with you, I presume?” the weasel weaseled predictably. “Woodes Rogers is a longtime client of our establishment, and I would not want to get on the bad side of his… Cuban associates.”

“You mean Grandal?” Eleanor asked, rather loudly. Flint could make out beads of cold sweat on Dufresne’s brow. It was common knowledge on the force that Rogers had dealings with Grandal’s Cuban gang. Unfortunately, common knowledge didn’t get you convictions these days.

“We might have more questions for you later. Don’t leave town, Mr. Douche… fresne.” Flint wasn’t even sorry for his little slip. Behind Mellie’s back, Eleanor’s lip curled upwards in unmistakable disgust.

“Oh, I won’t. Thank you, detectives. Anything for the Las Vegas PD.”

“No doubt,” Eleanor added somberly. When Dufresne backed away from them to flee the scene of his douchiness, she whispered into Flint’s ear, “He is too small to have strangled Hornigold, right?”

“That coward?” Flint snorted. “Come on, Guthrie. Let’s see what Woodes Rogers has to say for himself these days.”

Woodes “Scarface” Rogers usually had quite a bit to say about himself on any day. With the help of some high powered attorneys and a lot of ill-gained money, he had managed not only to avoid any persecution for his less than above-board deeds, but somehow also landed a profitable book deal in the process. Flint hadn’t read this book, but judging by what Rackham from his precinct had to say about it, Rogers was fond of administering fellatio - on himself. If only metaphorically.

Rogers had excused himself from the card table to accompany them to a well stocked bar in the corner of the room, where he ordered a whisky and eyed them both up and down with the look of a man who hadn’t had a good face-punching in a while.

“Aren’t you a little old to be dating someone her age, Flint?” the little asshole finally spoke after swooshing his drink about his gums for longer than strictly necessary.

“This is my new partner, Detective Guthrie,” Flint said. 

“She’s an upgrade,” Rogers leered.

“I’ll upgrade your face to match on both sides,” Eleanor hissed and Flint gave her a slight shake of his head. “Tell us about your dealings with Benjamin Hornigold,” she continued, not missing a beat.

“What? No foreplay?” Another leer and Rogers took a slow sip of his whisky. “Like to get right to it, do you?”

“Quit fucking around, Rogers,” Flint stared him down. “We may not be able to put you in prison yet, but we can still make your life incredibly uncomfortable.”

“I’m trembling,” Rogers deadpanned. “You people always think your power extends further than it really does.”

“You people?” Eleanor raised one eyebrow.

“Hm, yes. The hoi polloi,” Rogers explained with a smarmy grin.

Eleanor’s look asked Flint for permission to bash Rogers’ smug face in. Again, Flint had to wave her off with a barely perceptible move of his hand.

“I am a businessman, before anything else, detectives,” Rogers went on, swirling the drink at the bottom of his glass. “My dealings with Mr. Hornigold were strictly of a business nature. Nothing more.”

“Did he owe you money?”

“Hornigold was made of money, he had no reason to owe me.”

“Perhaps he owed you some other favors then,” Eleanor pressed.

“Are you still investigating his death?” Rogers laughed. “My, you _must_ be terrible at your job. Everyone knows his boytoy did him in. He’s living it up in Benny’s old villa now, isn’t he?”

“By his boytoy you mean…?” Flint frowned.

“That stripper he married? Great pecs,” Rogers leered again looking at Eleanor. “Not as great as yours, of course, sugar.”

“Eyes on the whisky,” Flint barked at him.

“Detectives,” Rogers rose from the bar, having downed the rest of his drink. “If you would like to have a more lengthy discussion, I suggest you come back with a warrant. And I will return with my attorneys. Good night.”

“Not so fast,” Flint placed his hand on Roger’s chest, his body blocking him from Eleanor, who still looked ready to follow through on her initial threat. “Where were you the night of October 2nd?”

“Here and there,” Rogers shrugged. “I’m sure I was nowhere near this hotel.”

“How can you be sure? All told, you seem to come here quite a bit,” Flint pressed.

“I’ll have to check my social calendar. You can’t expect me to remember where I was on a random night two months ago.”

“One would think it might be memorable when a known associate of yours was murdered,” Eleanor smirked.

“Doll, if I remembered every night when one of my known associates met an unfortunate accident, I’d never get a wink of sleep.” With these words, the renown scumbag winked at her. He began to walk away towards the gaming tables, when, as if remembering something, he turned to Flint and his face folded into a malevolent grimace. “Tell Captain Teach I send my regards.”

Flint placed a hand on Eleanor’s elbow. “Come on,” he steered her towards the exit.

“What the fuck was that all about?”

“He and Teach have history. Teach had booked him twice before, but we failed to get a conviction on the slippery bastard,” Flint explained.

“You’re not gonna give him this asshat’s regards, are you?”

“Fuck no.”

“I’d like to give him some regards of my own,” Eleanor said, cracking her knuckles.

“Unfortunately, he’s right,” Flint admitted. “We can’t touch him without a warrant. And right now we have nothing to go on, except the fact that he’s a known crook.”

“A known crook who pointed the finger at Silver,” Eleanor pointed out.

“He would, wouldn’t he?” Flint began to fume. “Smoke and mirrors and red herrings is Rogers’ MO. It’s how he’s gotten away with everything up till now. Silver’s an easy target, and he’s not helping his case by not even pretending to mourn Hornigold’s passing.”

“Your unbiased opinion?” Eleanor grinned.

“You’re the one who insisted I have dinner with him!”

“Why do you listen to me? I’m only a junior detective!”

***

Flint rubbed his brow ridge with his thumb, foot tapping nervously under the table. His afternoon headache had turned into an early evening migraine. There was a time he would have just gone home, drank a glass of scotch, and abandoned himself to what dreams may come. Instead, he found himself in one of Vegas’ finest culinary establishments, being fussed over by a celebrity chef and a waiting staff to rival that of the Queen of England. Plus, he was apparently expected to hold witty conversations on a wide variety of topics.

“What’s on your mind?” Silver asked him with surprising softness. “You look miserable, and I’m honestly this close to taking it personally.”

“It’s this fucking investigation,” Flint finally sighed. “And the fact that I can’t talk to you about it, when it’s sort of all I want to talk to you about.”

“That’s because you don’t know me yet. I can be a veritable font of amusing conversations, if given half a chance.”

“Why are we here, Silver? John?” Flint was unbalanced, which was a dangerous place for a man who carried a sidearm. “I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to call you… And don’t say ‘whatever I want’, Jesus, I was hoping we’d be beyond those juvenile lines.”

“Christ,” Silver pushed his chair away from the table. “Have I somehow offended you, Lieutenant? Or was it simply the imaginary me in that head of yours?”

Flint was an asshole, so he supposed it wasn’t that surprising that he also currently felt like one.

“You don’t have to keep calling me that… I,” Flint rubbed his temples, “I don’t know what we’re doing. You should just call me James.”

“I’m sorry, James,” Silver said, moving his chair closer again. “I suppose I was being a bit thoughtless, not taking into account the whole situation. It’s just that…” He let out a small chuckle. “Well, you just happen to be exceptionally my type. And I happen to be unexpectedly maritally unencumbered, so…”

“You do realize how guilty you sound, right?”

“I said ‘unexpectedly’, didn’t I?”

“Do you know how terrible this looks? You wooing the detective in charge of investigating your husband’s murder?”

“Still not entirely convinced it _was_ murder, Detective. Benny was into all sorts of kinky shit.”

“There was Ambien in his system,” Flint spat out, “and ligature marks indicative of a struggle. Fuck, I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

“Benny didn’t take Ambien…”

“See? I shouldn’t be here.”

“If you must leave, at least let me walk you back to your car,” Silver offered with such genuine concern that Flint almost cried. He wanted to cry even more when Silver rose from behind the table and Flint saw the way his perfectly tailored slacks hugged his slender hips and incredibly pert and muscular ass. Jesus H. Christ, this man was sent by the Devil himself to tempt him. “Unless… you’re staying?”

Flint picked his jaw off the table and tore his eyes away from Silver’s behind, only to get lost again in his eyes. Everything was terrible in the world. And they never even got to the main course.

“I’m sorry, John,” Flint said, rising out of his seat. “I really wish I could stay. I wish… things were different.”

“Maybe another time then,” Silver smiled, making a gentlemanly gesture towards the door. Flint walked past him, contemplating the not so outlandish possibility that Silver too wanted to check out his ass. It was a fairly passable ass, as far as he could tell.

They waited together for the valet to bring Flint’s car in silence. Occasionally, Flint would glance over to find Silver looking at him with an unreadable expression. A soft breeze blew his dark curls across his face and Flint had to bank down the urge to reach out to brush them back out of his eyes. Yup, leaving was definitely the only solid decision he’d made all night.

The valet pulled the car up, exchanging the car keys for a tip. Flint was glued to the asphalt, his feet heavy and cumbersome, seemingly only barely attached to the rest of his legs. His migraine might have spread all the way to his toes. 

Silver’s hand on the small of his back made Flint catch his breath. “If I give you my number, will you use it for non-police related business one day? If you feel it appropriate?”

“I’ve been an ass,” Flint responded more gruffly than he intended. “Why would you ever want to hear from me again?”

“It’ll be easier than me continuing to send you flowers and chocolates at work.”

“John, I’m serious.”

“So am I. I like you, James. I want to see you again. Even if you truly are an ass.”

A crooked smile lit up Flint’s face in spite of the headache. He reached into the inner pocket of his blazer and pulled out his phone. 

“Give me your number, stalker.”


	3. Chapter 3

Hal lived in the suburbs, which somehow made the treck to his house feel like a weekend getaway. Flint looked forward to time away from the Strip, the constant shadow cast by John Silver, and the ceaseless chattering of his colleagues at the precinct.

“As your friend and long time colleague,” Rackham had informed Flint while they had both been at the urinals, “I feel duty-bound to inform you we have a pool going on when you’re going to bang the Widow Hornigold.”

“God damn, you’re vile,” Flint shook his head and his cock, before returning it to his pants.

“You think you have it bad? Your partner won’t stop talking to me about the homewrecking lesbian!”

“The homewrecking who?”

“Max Nassau! For fuck’s sakes, you know she stole my wife from me.”

“Anne left you because she hardly ever saw you, Jack.”

“Lesbians, Flint. You cannot trust them.”

“Get a grip, Jack.”

Flint was ready to not talk about any of this for at least the few next foreseeable hours. There would be no widowers, no lesbians, and definitely no fucking pools on his dick. Just beers and basketball and…

“Miranda?”

“Come on in, love, we’ve been expecting you!” 

She took the beer out of his hands and he only just let go of it grudgingly. Not that he wasn’t happy to see her but… “This feels too much like an intervention. Since when does Hal invite you over?”

“Since I’ve become a retired gentleman of leisure,” Gates gestured expansively. Flint noticed the kitchen counter was covered in enough take-out to feed a small army.

“Are you expecting anyone else?” Flint’s fight or flight responses were beginning to rev up the motor in his ass.

“Take a load off, Flint,” Hal said, slapping his back, “Have a seat. Grab a drink. We’re all old friends here.”

Fuck, it really was going to be an intervention. Flint hung his head and aimlessly reached for the first thing on the kitchen counter, which appeared to be a chicken wing. He ate it mirthlessly.

“You look tired, James,” Miranda said with genuine compassion. 

Miranda was his oldest living friend. They’d gone to high school together after Miranda’s family had relocated from the UK. Been inseparable since they’d lost their virginities to each other (at which point Flint realized he was probably rather gay). There was no use lying to her.

“Of course I look tired, I’ve barely been getting any sleep,” he admitted.

“Why not?”

Why not? How was he to explain to her that only last night he’d woken up at four o’clock in the morning with a boner so raging that it hurt, and so he had ended up beating off furiously, stifling his moans into the pillow, because the dream he’d woken up from was too vivid, and then he couldn’t go back to sleep the rest of the night. Well, he supposed he could have said all that, but then he’d probably also have to mention that the most vivid part of his dream had been a certain client of hers and his absolutely delectable, grade A ass.

“Bad dreams,” he’d finally replied.

“It’s that Hornigold case that’s got you all worked up,” Hal said. Nail-head, meet hammer.

“We probably shouldn’t talk about work,” Flint suggested weakly.

“All right,” Miranda said, pouring herself a glass of some rosé, “Let’s talk about your love life.”

“Oh, Jesus, not you too,” Flint moaned. 

“What have you done to John?” Miranda asked and both Flint and Gates startled in her direction. “I know I’m his attorney, but I also happen to think he’s a lovely bloke. I don’t like seeing him like that!”

“Like what?” Flint was afraid to ask.

“The other day, I went over to his house to sign some paperwork. And do you know what I found? He was laying out by his pool, totally naked except for his sunglasses, and without a drop of sunscreen on.”

“Um…” Honestly, Flint wasn’t sure which part of that story he was supposed to be outraged by more. Possibly the fact that it was December, and even though they lived in Nevada, it wasn't exactly sunbathing weather. In the meantime, the image of Silver totally naked by the poolside was likely to start haunting his dreams. He was never going to have a good night’s rest again.

“If he did not already have a pretty good base tan going, he would’ve burned to a crisp!” Miranda continued. “And when I asked him how he could’ve been so thoughtless, do you now what he told me?”

“It’s December?” Flint suggested.

“No, you bastard! He said he'd forgotten.”

“So, why’s that so horrible?” Hal asked, much to Flint’s relief.

“Because John Silver doesn’t forget anything. That boy has eidetic memory. I’ve never seen him so despondent in my life.”

“He has eidetic memory?” Flint asked. Well, then perhaps they were even, because Silver’s stupidly hot face was certainly burned into the inside of Flint’s corneas for all eternity.

“I realize as his legal counsel I should not be encouraging this, but, James, I think he genuinely likes you.”

“Miranda, you should know better,” Hal shook his head. 

“He’s a nice boy. I really don’t think he killed that odious old lech,” Miranda continued, ignoring Hal’s looks of disapproval.

“That odious old lech was a friend of mine,” Hal tried to protest.

“Your loyalty is admirable, Hal, but misplaced in this case,” Miranda continued, sipping her wine. “James, I could lose my license for this! I would not be telling you if I did not think it was absolutely genuine on his end.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s genuine,” Flint replied with a heavy sigh. “We’re in the middle of this investigation. Whether or not he killed Hornigold, I cannot be romantically involved with him. It will make obtaining any conviction incredibly difficult. Any attorney worth their salt would exploit this against our case.”

“Whether or not he killed Hornigold? Oh, James.” Miranda let out a bright peal of laughter. “You’ve got it bad.”

“No, you didn’t hear what I said.”

“I heard you,” she smiled into her wine.

“No, really, it was the second part of that sentence that was important.”

***

He had spent the night on Hal’s couch, staring at the little green light of the smoke alarm on the ceiling above his head, blinking like a bleary-eyed Cyclops distorted by Flint’s astigmatism. His hand twitched for his phone, thankful for the blue light filter that kept the little screen from blinding him in the darkness.

_I really wish I could see you_ , he typed. The words of the unsent text message gazed hazily at him from the screen. Then he quickly pressed the erase button until they were all gone, as if they’d never been there in the first place.

***

It was settled then: all Flint needed to do to be able to see John Silver ~~naked~~ was to solve this god damned case. “You’re a detective: _detect_ ,” he told himself, brewed a fresh pot of the aforementioned terrible coffee, and hunkered down at his desk. It wasn’t as if they had not been presented with a bevy of evidence, the problem was sifting through it to figure out what was actually relevant and what was just white noise. And trying to solve a murder in Vegas, the white noise was always overwhelming.

“Donuts,” Eleanor’s hand hovered a box over Flint’s head. She spoke with her mouth already full of sugary pastry.

“Love handles,” he replied.

“Excuse you!”

“I didn’t mean you, I meant myself. I don’t have the metabolism of a twenty-something.”

“You’re adorable, Flint. I’d totally fuck you, if I didn’t think of you as my surrogate dad.”

“There are several flavors of wrong in that sentiment.” Flint banked down a rising wave of sudden bile. “Pull up a chair and do your fucking job, Guthrie. Help me break this thing open.”

“I love you, daddy.”

“Stop it.”

He popped his headphones back in and turned on some good old-fashioned Portishead to block out the sound of Eleanor chewing and Rackham complaining about lesbians in the background to his own new partner, a certain Mark Read. No wonder he hadn’t been able to crack this case working under such duress.

A couple of songs in, Eleanor pulled his headphones right out of his ears. “Earth to Flint.” He indicated his attention by a mildly annoyed hum. “So I’ve been going through Hornigold’s phone records again and I think I found something. Maybe? Tell me what you think.” She turned her laptop screen towards Flint and they both leaned over. “Here are the text messages from the night of the murder. Look at the exchange between him and Silver, starting with the 9:33pm time stamp.”

Silver 9:33pm: _Hey babe, I’m at the MaxAnne shindig. Probably will spend the night. Didn’t want you to worry._

Hornigold 9:54pm: _No worries. I’ll be @villa. See you tomorrow buttercup._

Silver 10:15pm: _See you later, stallion!_

“Okay, first of all, ewww,” Flint said, reaching for a donut after all. Eating your feelings was a thing, and disgust was definitely a feeling. “Did you just show this to me to make me wanna hurl?”

“When I first looked at this exchange,” Eleanor continued, ignoring Flint’s sudden bout of nausea, “I thought he meant he was gonna be at The Villas, which is what the Penthouse suites at The Lion are called.”

“Uh-huh?” Flint asked, stuffing his face full of saccharine goodness that was oh-so-bad for you. Just like John Silver. Buttercup? Stallion? Fuck his life.

“But now that I’m looking at it again, I think he means the villa, as in the house, as in not at The Lion at all,” Eleanor explained.

“As in… he was lying?”

“I think he was lying,” Eleanor concluded.

“That fucking little shitbag,” Flint said, swallowing the last piece of his donut.

“He was on a phone call with a blocked number at the time that Silver sent him the text, which is why he doesn’t respond to it until he’s off the call,” Eleanor continued, pointing to the screen.

“Shitbag was making other plans?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? But there’s only one way to know for sure.”

“Oh no, don’t say it.”

“We have to talk to Silver again.”

“You said it.” 

Flint’s face sank. This wasn’t at all the circumstance under which he was hoping to see Silver again.

***

Flint wasn’t sure why he’d nearly had a heart attack or what he was expecting to find at Silver’s villa, especially after the conversation he had with Miranda. Nevertheless, he could physically feel all of his blood drain from his face and extremities and rush headlong into his cock, causing him to painfully bump into a lawn chair and then almost fall over into Silver’s pool.

He only _almost_ fell over because Silver had caught him. But then a very naked John Silver was holding him in his arms.

“Woah there, klutzo!”

“Why must you always sunbathe in the nude!” Flint stuttered, pushing his own sunglasses firmly back up the ridge of his nose.

“What do you mean by ‘always’?” Eleanor asked, casually observing the entire scene with stoic detachment.

“Force of habit, I guess,” Silver shrugged and turned to Eleanor. “I didn’t want to have tan lines for the show before. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Tu casa es tu casa,” Eleanor shrugged. 

As Silver turned back towards Flint, she made a gesture behind his back that very clearly indicated she was not as unmoved as she’d seemed. The gesture was a space between her hands about the size of a can of corn. It was a bit optimistic, but not that big of a hyperbole, Flint noted. Then, she gave Flint the double thumbs up.

“Mr. Silver,” Flint spoke, having cleared his throat. “Perhaps you could put something on? We’d like to ass… ask you some questions.”

Silver chuckled and bent down to grab a towel from his poolside lawn chair, wrapping it rather precariously around his narrow hips. The pleasure trail leading up to his inwardly turned and almost smiling bellybutton was not distracting at all. The towel, in the meantime, did its best to cling for dear life to his sharp hipbones, striving for modesty with every fiber.

“You wanted to ask me some questions,” Silver’s voice pulled Flint out of his existential angst.

Eleanor took a step towards him and showed him a print out of Hornigold’s phone records. “Your husband sent you this text the night he died. Do you know what he meant by ‘@villa’?” she asked.

“Well, Detective,” Silver replied, taking a closer look at the page, “I suppose he meant home.”

“Can you be more specific?” Flint asked, doing his best not to lead and to keep his eyes strictly above Silver’s distracting… well… everything. He quietly added never seeing Silver perform to his long list of missed life opportunities.

“This place. Here. The place where I currently reside,” Silver answered, throwing a dirty look Flint’s way. “Why?”

“You did not think to mention this to us on the occasion of your statement?” Eleanor pressed. “It did not occur to you that your husband telling you he’ll stay at home prior to his body ending up at his other residence in the hotel was pertinent?”

“If you don’t mind,” Silver stopped her, “And I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d appreciate it if the Lieutenant could ask the questions. It’s just that I miss the sound of his voice. Nothing personal, Detective Guthrie.”

Eleanor gave Flint a look, but then again, it was a well known adage that regrettably looks could not kill. 

“Answer the question, Mr. Silver,” Flint said, narrowing his eyes in displeasure. He was being toyed with. Everything that Silver had done since day one was just one long con. And Flint was so angry at himself for ever thinking it could be anything else.

“No, it did not occur to me,” Silver replied, handing the paper back to Eleanor. “To be honest, I was already quite a bit intoxicated by the time I got this text, and consequently I thought nothing of it.”

“I thought you had eidetic memory,” Flint stepped forward. He was becoming less and less impressed with Silver’s seemingly endless web of lies.

“Be that as it may, Lieutenant,” Silver replied unblinkingly, “I cannot remember things very well if I’m under the influence.”

“Any ideas why your late husband might have gone to The Lion after telling you he was staying home?” Eleanor continued, ignoring Silver’s prior request.

“Well, the Thunder boys were performing,” Silver smirked, “which would be a good enough reason to go to The Lion on any night of the week, especially for Benny.”

“So you were sober enough to text your husband, but not sober enough to recall his reply which you received several minutes later?” Flint pressed.

“What exactly are you implying, Lieutenant?” Silver bristled, giving Flint the satisfaction of finally hitting a nerve.

“Perhaps nothing. Perhaps that this whole thing has been awfully convenient for you. And perhaps that just because you have a bulletproof alibi, doesn’t mean you couldn’t have hired someone else to off Hornigold on your behalf.”

“Fuck you, James!” Silver snapped, grabbing a robe from the back of his lawn chair and wrapping it around his gorgeous body like impenetrable armor. 

“Yes, your desire to fuck my partner has been noted on several occasions,” Eleanor smirked.

“Detective Guthrie,” Silver pronounced in an icy tone Flint had not heard before, “if you’re going to continue this line of inquiry, I’m afraid I’m going to have to call my attorney.”

“We’re done here,” Flint said gruffly. “We’ll show ourselves out.”

***

“We have to track down that caller, it’s the best lead we’ve got,” Eleanor said aloud what Flint had already been thinking.

“All right, I’ll get the phone to the IT team, you keep combing his phone records to see if you find anything,” Flint quickly delegated. “Great job catching this one.”

They did rock, paper, scissors for the driver's side. Flint won. Of course, he always went with rock, so it was a wonder Eleanor hadn’t stuck to paper each time. Flint suspected she might have been letting him win.

“So,” Eleanor said, looking out the window pensively, “that did not go well.”

“What do you mean? We got what we came for - Hornigold was lying to his husband that night.”

“He might’ve been telling the truth,” Eleanor said quietly. “Not Hornigold. I mean, Silver. It’s possible that he just got wasted and forgot all about his exchange with the hubs.”

“Since when do you defend him?”

“I don’t know,” Eleanor shook her hair out of her ponytail and absentmindedly played with her hairband as Flint drove. The trek back to the station did not exactly take them through the most scenic route, so Flint had to assume she was lost more in thought than in the view. “It’s just a gut feeling, you know? I don’t think he’s lying.”

Flint chewed on his mustache, knuckles clenched around the wheel. “Well, half of what we do is based on gut feeling. The rest: hard evidence.”

“You’re afraid to believe him because this is personal for you. Because if you believe him, and you’re wrong, this might blow up in your face in every way imaginable.”

“Thank you, Detective Guthrie.”

It was well past sunset when Flint finally got home. He sat in his car and took a few relaxing breaths, to prepare for the transition from his work space to his home space, just like his therapist used to teach him. He wasn’t going to take his work home, which was why he’d stayed at the precinct so late. But he didn’t feel that usual pull towards his threshold either, because beyond his door was a different kind of darkness, an empty space filled only with what might have been.

He began the slow walk up the stairs to his apartment on the second floor, when he caught a hooded figure out of the corner of his eye. Hand reflexively going towards his sidearm, he cautiously approached the intruder, who sat upon the landing just above his apartment door.

“Las Vegas PD!” he drew his gun and pointed it at the man.

“Don’t shoot - it’s me.” The man jumped up from the step where he was seated, arms flying up, throwing the hood back to reveal an unruly mop of curls and eyes the color of the skies on a summer day.

“That’s still no reason not to shoot you,” Flint stated, lowering his sidearm. “What are you doing here? And how the hell do you know where I live?”

Silver smiled, all teeth and twinkling eyes. “What kind of a stalker would I be if I couldn’t manage a simple thing like that?”

“I see you still haven’t answered either of my questions. You really excel at that.”

“I needed to know if you really think I am capable of murdering someone.”

“I don’t know you very well, do I?” Flint said, increasingly irritated at being accosted this way and at his own home. “Woodes Rogers certainly didn’t hesitate to point his greasy finger at you.”

“Well, Scarface really enjoys the _murder_ aspect of murder, so he’d know.”

“You haven’t given me anything to go on,” Flint said, the first flames of anger beginning to lick up his insides. “You haven’t given me anything real since the day we met. It was just a big show for you. A bit of the old Vegas showboat glitter.”

“You don’t want anything real,” Silver retorted, taking a few steps down towards Flint’s level. “What you want is something neat that you can classify and file away and write a report on. Well, I’m sorry, James, but life isn’t always a neatly constructed whodunnit. Sometimes it’s just a shit-ton of showboat glitter with a side of bad rotten luck.”

“Just tell me _one_ thing about you that’s true!” Flint yelled, his voice rising up the stairs and bouncing back off the walls.

Silver took another step towards him, entirely careless of the gun that Flint still held in his hand, and lifted one hand, pressing into the nape of Flint’s neck, fingers threading into the thickets of his russet hair as he pulled impossibly closer and pressed their lips together in a kiss that seared Flint’s soul and left his bones trembling. 

“There’s your one true thing, you asshole,” Silver breathed against Flint’s mouth, not pulling away, yet no longer kissing him, their foreheads still pressed together as if glued by a concoction of sweat and neuroses.

“Don’t go,” Flint exhaled, his hand trembling as he slid the safety firmly back. “Please, don’t go.”

“I have to,” Silver said in a voice that was too full of melancholy. “That’s the other true thing, and we both know it.”

His hand slid down the back of Flint’s neck and he stepped away, letting the cool air force its way in between their warm and wanting bodies. Flint watched him run down his stairs like a graceful jungle cat and finally reached for his keys. It was going to be another long night, he thought, as he stepped through the door of his dark and empty apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This slowburn is killing me XD


	4. Chapter 4

Flint had just received an email from Featherstone in IT and saw the words “The good news is…” when a pointy-toed pump shoe began to tap itself in his periphery. He held up his finger, indicating his more than obvious unavailability, and continued to read the email.

 _The good news is I narrowed down the caller to a landline at The Lion. The bad news is, I couldn’t tell you which room exactly. On the plus side, I can also tell you that your vic had several calls from the same landline at least once a week, going back months._

“James!”

_They had become more rare about three months leading up to the death. I could tell you more if we were allowed to test…_

“James Edward Flint!”

“Miranda Jesus Fucking Christ Barlow!” Flint spun around in his chair. “I’m trying to work! Protecting and serving? You remember that, right?”

“Did you threaten to arrest my client again?” Miranda’s Gucci bag landed with a loud thud on Flint’s desk.

“I… no?” Flint cringed. 

“Did you tell John you think he killed that miserable old gnat?” Miranda’s voice rose in pitch.

“I was merely interrogating a potential witness,” Flint frowned. “This is a bit unprofessional, isn’t it, counselor?”

“You are never going to get laid behaving like this!”

“Miranda, you’re going to get yourself disbarred,” Flint laughed. “Perhaps you should recuse yourself, since you’re obviously too emotionally attached to your… client.”

“John is a lovely human being. He just made a sizable anonymous donation to a foundation that feeds orphans in Africa. You know, the one on TV with the sad infomercials?”

“Miranda…”

“Ah, Mrs. Barlow,” Eleanor walked up behind Miranda and glanced towards Flint. He had never felt so in need of backup. 

“It’s Ms. Barlow, actually,” Miranda corrected her. “Detective Guthrie, is it?”

“Please, call me Eleanor. There is no need for formality. You love Flint, and I have to tolerate him for work. Well, that practically makes us family, doesn’t it?”

“Eleanor, perhaps you can explain something to me,” Miranda smiled a beatific smile at Flint’s partner. “You’ve seen John Silver naked, haven’t you?”

Eleanor almost spat out the coffee she’d been holding. “For work-related reasons only, I assure you.”

“Please then explain to me how a person can be daft enough to continue resisting his advances, and in such a neanderthal fashion as my good friend James here?”

“Really, there’s no need for you to answer that, Guthrie,” Flint rose from his chair.

“Where is he?” A new voice rang through the office. “I need to speak to Lieutenant Flint! Get out of my way, Jack!” A woman speaking in a vaguely French lilting accent appeared, whom Flint had immediately recognized as Max Nassau, Silver’s alibi and madam extraordinaire. “Ah, there he is. The man who would sooner spit in the face of love than admit he was wrong!”

Flint took a step backwards, pressing his back against the wall.

“Thank you!” Miranda chimed in. 

Flint cast about the precinct for support, only to lock eyes with Rackham who shook his head at him despondently. “Surrounded by lesbians, Flint! Don’t let them suck you dry of life, blood, and alimony!”

“Fuck you, Jack!” Eleanor and Max shouted at the other detective simultaneously.

“Oh, hello, Detective Guthrie,” the madam nodded in Eleanor’s direction, as if seeing her for the first time. “I am just here to let your partner know that if he makes my best friend cry again…”

“Silver… cries?” Flint bit his tongue.

“You are a monster!” Max all but spat in Flint’s face. “Detective Guthrie, are you available for lunch?”

Eleanor’s mouth hovered open, her eyes shooting between Flint, Max, and Miranda, while her hand came up to toy with her pony tail.

“The homewrecking lesbian will steal your partner if you don’t watch out, Flint!” Rackham hollered from behind his own desk.

“Fuck you, Jack!” all four of them hollered back. It was nice to see that they could still agree on something.

“Flint! Guthrie! In my office!” Teach’s voice boomed over the PA.

“So much for lunch,” Eleanor shrugged, and, Lord help Flint, blushed like a schoolgirl making eyes at Vegas’ most notorious madam.

“Pity,” Max said and took Miranda by the arm. “Come, cherie, we will have lunch without these police brutes, and you can fill me in on how things are going for our sweet boy.”

“Fabulous,” Miranda consented, sweeping her purse off of Flint’s desk.

“We’re going to get suspended because you _wouldn’t_ fuck a suspect,” Eleanor sighed, her head falling against Flint’s shoulder. “Way to not take one for the team.”

***

 _I’m really sorry, but I need to speak to you about the case_ , Flint wrote.

_Do I need to call Miranda?_

Flint traced his thumb over the smooth contour of his screen, caressing the words. It was the first text on his phone from Silver. He could almost close his eyes and pretend that the context was entirely different. Sadly, he was still starring in the shitshow that was his own life, and what a crappy series that was. It totally jumped the shark back in his late twenties.

 _Up to you. It’s a conversation of a private nature._ He stared at the text and shook his head before sending it anyways.

_I’ll try to keep my pants on. Come over._

Flint toyed with the keyboard of his phone. _Can we meet some place more public?_ he had typed and immediately erased it. _See you in 20_ he wrote instead.

The villa was far from empty when he arrived, so he need not have worried about having any privacy. A pool party appeared to be in full swing out back and Flint could easily make out Max Nassau’s long curly hair as she spoke to another raven haired buxom beauty who Flint could only infer was a “business associate” or possibly an employee. A gigantor of a man walked past and offered Flint a friendly wave with an arm the size of Flint’s thigh. Billy Boner. Flint barely recognized him with most of his clothes all firmly attached.

“Detective… Flint, was it?” the giant smiled and extended Flint a beer.

“Thank you, I’m on the job.”

“More’s the pity,” the Boner shrugged and stretched, exposing the planes of his Down Under-brand torso as the little midriff he wore rode all the way up to his nipples.

“Don’t be so friendly to him, Billy,” Silver had walked in, followed by a small and yippee dog who immediately ran up to Flint and attempted eating his shoe laces. “He’s probably here to arrest me. Bad girl, Nomi!” Then he grinned up at Flint. “Sorry. Max named her after that terrible movie.”

“ _Showgirls_?” Flint asked and frowned at himself. For a man with a clandestine job, he sure had a big mouth. 

“Why, James, you’re an endless source of surprises,” Silver laughed, picking up the tiny canine and shooing her out the patio doors so she could go hump something poolside. 

“And I’m not here to arrest you. Where can we talk more privately?”

Silver looked… like someone who had walked out of a magazine shoot. His long hair hung loosely over his tanned shoulders. He had kept his promise of keeping his pants on, yet he was wearing only finely tailored white slacks that clung to each curve of his hips and legs for dear life and left nothing to the imagination in the package department. The rest of his glorious, Grecian demigod body was uncovered, with only a short necklace of a simple metallic pendant with a Maori swirl design that rested enticingly against his collar bones. This entire ensemble was topped off with a beige, wide-brimmed fedora with a sheriff’s star buckle in the center.

He waved Flint to follow him down the corridor and they ducked into a room strewn with musical instruments in various states of disarray.

“It’s December,” Flint pointed out a bit helplessly.

“So?”

“Aren’t you… a bit cold?”

“The pool is heated and I’ve got lamps out there. It’s nice to see you so concerned,” Silver teased and sat down in an armchair that a moment ago held some sort of a balalaika that Silver had set aside. “Would you like me to put a shirt on?” the little shit smirked. “Is this going to be too distracting for you?”

“I’d hate for you to be uncomfortable in your own home,” Flint muttered, sitting down across from Silver and crossing his legs.

“Hm,” was all Silver said and sprawled out in the armchair, with one of his legs thrown over the armrest. “What’s this you wanted to talk about then?” His left thumb rested in the loop of his slacks, pulling them down just enough to give Flint a tantalizing glimpse of Silver’s psoas muscle. The rest of his obscenely long fingers dangled casually over his bulge.

“I think Hornigold was cheating on you.”

“Huh,” Silver only smiled and avoided Flint’s eyes.

“It would help the investigation if we knew with whom and you don’t seem like the kind of guy who’d let a thing like that go on without your knowledge. Which makes me think you not only knew, but permitted it.”

“Maybe I knew, maybe I didn't. Why would I tell you?”

“I would think you have a vested interest in bringing this investigation to a close. Whoever this person is may have been the last to see your husband alive.”

Silver shifted in his seat, pulling in his sprawled limbs. “Or first to see him dead.”

“Why would you protect them?”

“You still don't get it,” Silver’s eyes darkened. “Every time Benny was out there fucking someone else, he was not over here fucking me.”

“We can charge you with obstruction,” Flint threatened weakly. 

“I'm not a snitch, James.”

The world was closing in on Flint and he was stuck in an endless spiral of contradictions. He hung his head and pressed the pads of his palms into his eye sockets. He could already tell he was maybe a mere fifteen minutes out from another migraine.

The air shifted around him, getting warmer, and then a hand as hot as the sun landed on his knee. He opened his eyes to behold Silver kneeling at his feet, looking up at him with those ridiculous eyes that eclipsed the moon and all of Flint’s higher functioning.

“This is absurd,” Silver spoke quietly as his fingers dug deeper into Flint’s knee. “You keep coming here to throw shade, but the truth of the matter is, you’re going to need me to help you solve this case. Tell me I’m wrong.” Flint held his breath, unable to tear his eyes away from Silver’s mouth, hanging on his every word as if the answer to all his life’s dilemmas hovered between Silver’s lips. “We’d be better off as partners, don’t you think?”

“I already have a partner,” Flint croaked out, his vocal cords being the last of his body parts to betray him.

Silver smiled, soft and slow, and then his other hand came up to cradle the back of Flint’s head. “Then we’ll be something else, I guess.”

Flint’s mouth was on Silver’s before the word “collusion” could even cross his mind. His body surged forward as Silver pressed into him, pushing up on his knees to wrap his arms tightly around Flint’s neck as their mouths moved together. Flint’s arms were wrapped around Silver’s naked torso, the heat of his lithe body scorching Flint’s soul to ashes. Silver rose up like a cresting wave to straddle his lap, thighs pressed tightly around Flint’s own, rocking the chair with a certainty that Flint envied. Silver’s mouth was a brand that Flint would gladly wear forever had their circumstances been different. Their tongues danced together in a languid tango of desire, while Silver’s hands clenched and pulled on Flint’s hair, tearing a moan out of him that got quickly swallowed up by another deep kiss.

“This is madness,” Flint whispered, inhaling the veil of Silver’s curls as it hung over his face. Silver’s mouth had trailed off, over the ridge of his jaw, pressing soft, unrushed kisses into the side of his neck, mouthing at the juncture of his shoulder. Flint’s arms were still wrapped firmly around Silver’s exposed back. He did not have the strength to let go.

A loud rap on the door broke through the enchantment. “Long John! You still in there?” Fucking Billy Boner, more like Boner-killer, Flint lamented.

“What’s up, Billy?” Silver hollered back, not bothering to move off of Flint’s lap or let go of his hair.

“Idelle wants to know where you keep the p… aaahhhhh… potatoes. Hey. Is Flint still in there with you? Are you under arrest?”

“I’m fine. Tell the girls I’ll be right there.” He beamed down at Flint, his eyes sparkling like mischievous sapphires. “We’re fine, aren’t we, Lieutenant?” A pathetic whimper was all that escaped Flint. “Let me help you solve this case and then we don’t have to pretend _this_ ,” he gestured between their connected bodies, “isn’t happening.”

Flint exhaled, his lips pressing of their own accord into the long sinews of Silver’s neck. “Just tell me who your husband was fucking on the side,” he mouthed against Silver’s skin.

“It was probably Mellie,” Silver whispered into the crown of Flint’s head. “I did tell you they were an item before Benny and I tied the knot, didn’t I?”

“I don’t get it,” Flint looked up at him. “Why would anyone fuck the Douche if they were married to you?”

“There’s something comforting about knowing you’re wanted,” Silver said softly, carding his fingers through Flint’s hair. “Mellie was pretty obsessed with Benny. He idolized him in a way the rest of us never would. I suspect he has some kind of deeply rooted daddy issues,” Silver concluded with a shrug.

Flint reached up to brush Silver's hair out of his face so he could look his fill. If he was doomed to having pornographic dreams all night, he at least wanted them to be accurate. 

“You know what the worst part is?” he said with a sour expression. “This isn't even the only case I'm working.”

“Vegas is full of rotten, murdering fucks,” Silver said, placing a surprisingly chaste kiss on Flint’s forehead. 

“Fucking budget cuts,” Flint grumbled and buried his face against Silver's collar bones. In a moment he'd need to leave, but he could indulge himself in making that moment count. 

***

“Flint, I want to personally thank you for taking one for the team,” Teach said, writing something at his desk, and not making eye contact. 

“Sir?”

“I don’t want to know what you did or who you did it to, but I was really worried you were going to fuck up this entire Hornigold investigation and cost us more funding.”

“And you want to thank me for…?”

“We got an anonymous donation. A hefty one.” Teach looked up and winked at Flint. “Of course most of it’s gonna get distributed up and down the State, but they’re letting us keep enough for a couple of more FTEs, so… that should lighten your caseload significantly.”

“That’s great news, sir.”

“Maybe you and Rackham can finally put your heads together to put that shitbird Rogers away for good.”

“Rackham? What about Guthrie?” Flint was losing track of the happenings. Perhaps he needed to make a list. Number one on that list would be to kiss that anonymous donor.

“I’m promoting Guthrie.”

“What? She’s… Okay.”

“Don’t worry, Flint. I did not say I’m transferring her or that she can no longer be your partner. You work well together, and besides… I’m terrified of what she might do to me in my sleep if I tried to separate the two of you.”

Flint let out a sigh of relief. He didn’t realize how much he’d come to rely on Eleanor until the vague threat of her absence apparated like a grizzled ghost before his eyes.

“You make a good team,” Teach added, going back to his paperwork. “Don’t fuck it up.”

No pressure, Flint told himself. It’s not like the price of fucking things up had gotten more dear than he was willing to pay lately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, guys, shit's gonna really hit the fan in the next chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where we start to earn our Mature rating, I guess.

Flint couldn’t sleep again. Each time he closed his eyes, he was haunted by a different part of John Silver’s anatomy. And as if that wasn’t obscene enough, he had all their conversations on endless playback loop inside his own mind, like some kind of a cursed recording, destined to possess and destroy the soul of anyone who heard it.

_There’s your one true thing, you asshole._

_Then we’ll be something else, I guess._

Flint turned onto his stomach, burrowing into his pillow and mattress, willing his bed to swallow him whole. How did this happen to him? He’d spent years building wall after wall around his heart. He had dedicated his life to making sure that people like Silver were never able to hurt people like him. Or perhaps he’d had it all wrong. Perhaps he’d dedicated his life to making sure that people like Hornigold were never able to hurt people like Silver? Silver was unknown and unknowable like an abyss, and Flint suspected once he fell in, there would be no easy way of climbing back out.

He flipped around onto his back, his hand lunging for his phone and typing in his password to unlock it. He stared at the screen, which told him that it was 1:23 a.m. and the temperature outside had been 49 degrees Fahrenheit.

 _Was it you?_ he finally typed. _The anonymous donor?_ he added before pressing SEND.

He placed the phone back on his bedside table and shut his eyes. Perhaps now that he’d gotten that out of the way, the spirits would take pity on him and carry him off to sleep.

Instead, the phone came to life, lighting up the screen like all the Christmas trees on the Strip.

_First of all, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Second, it wouldn’t be very anonymous if you knew who the donor was, would it?_

Flint stared at the text enraptured. Silver used complete sentences and proper punctuation while texting. He was either extremely capable at image management and therefore an expert conartist, or he was the most adorable man in the world. Flint could not quite find a third option.

 _Hypothetically, why would one donate money to a police department?_ he wrote.

_Hypothetically? Perhaps one hopes to give a certain detective more bearth to solve a certain case close to one’s heart._

_So one might hypothetically have ulterior motives?_ Flint grinned as he pressed SEND.

_Perhaps one simply likes a man in uniform._

_Detectives wear plain clothes._

_Well there you have it: I hypothetically know nothing. Go to sleep, James._

_You know you should really get a financial advisor. You’re playing pretty fast and loose with your inheritance._

_How else am I supposed to prove to you that I didn’t kill Benny for his money?_

_Are you saying there’s a different motive?_ Flint shot out before the could think better of it.

_You are never gonna get any ass at this rate, Lieutenant._

Flint grinned like a damned fool at the text message on his screen. Then, he shut his eyes, so as not to see himself pressing the cold, hard device to his breast. Miranda had been right; he was a goner.

***

Eleanor got inside the car with a box of chicken nuggets and two steaming coffees. 

“Explain to me again, why do we both have to sit here? Let me go inside! I’ll find out more by beating the shit out of him.”

“Welcome to your first stakeout, Guthrie,” Flint snorted. “Last I checked, a confession that you beat out of your suspect wasn’t admissible. Aren’t you supposed to be studying for the Sergeant's exam?”

“I’d love to, but I’m stuck here with you. Waiting to see something interesting.”

“This guy’s dirty, I can feel it in my bones,” Flint snarled, taking a militant drink of his coffee. It was too hot and too bitter and burned his tongue and esophagus. But it fueled his rage, so that was nice. 

“I still can’t believe Teach authorized this based on a feeling in your _bones_ ,” Eleanor shook her head. “It could have been anyone on the other line with Hornigold that night. Thousands of people were in the casino and the hotel, hundreds of them were employees of some sort.”

“But only one of them is a huge weasel,” Flint pointed out in a tone that broached no argument. “He’s up to his tits in this. He was Hornigold’s business partner, after all.”

“Do you think Rogers knew Hornigold was skimming off the top?” Eleanor asked popping a nugget in her mouth. 

“Know is a strong word. We’ve been all over Hornigold’s records like flies on a steaming turd, and still can’t prove he was actually laundering money for Scarface. Wily old fucker covered his trail up pretty good.”

“Too bad he wasn’t wily enough to not get murdered.”

“By someone he trusted,” Flint said, taking a bite of a nugget himself. “These are so fucking good. What does McDonald’s put in their nuggets to make them taste so much better than the other fast food chains?”

“Heroin?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Flint shrugged and reached for another nugget. “Fuck, get these away from me.”

“Why? You worried Long John Silver isn’t a chubby chaser?”

“Guthrie, have I ever told you how vile you are?”

“Only every day,” she laughed and popped two nuggets into her mouth at the same time.

“Yeah, yeah, enjoy being able to do that while you’re young and fit,” Flint grumbled. 

“We’re sure as shit not gonna get in shape sitting in this death trap of a car, waiting for a… Douche!” Eleanor grabbed Flint’s shoulder and shook him.

“I don’t disagree.”

“No! The Douche!” She pointed frantically to a figure who walked out of the side entrance of the house they’d been staking out.

Flint slapped her arm down. “Real subtle, Detective.”

“3 a.m., going on a casual stroll around the neighborhood, not looking suspicious at all,” Eleanor chuckled. “We should follow him on foot. Come on, Flint.”

They got out of the car and Flint offered Eleanor his arm. “You’re my date and you’re very drunk,” he whispered.

“That’ll only work if he doesn’t see our faces,” Eleanor pointed out, covering her blond hair with the hood of her black hoodie which she wore underneath her leather jacket. “Come on, daddy,” she tittered, slipping her arm around Flint’s elbow.

Dufresne walked briskly, but they were able to follow him at a somewhat leisurely pace, only needing to pretend to be a drunken, amorous couple once when their suspect did a double-take crossing the street towards the small gate of a local parish.

“Going to church at 3 a.m.,” Eleanor pointed out. “Very devout.”

“That’s the only possible explanation,” Flint smirked. 

“Could be meeting someone? Should we call for backup?”

“We don’t have probable cause yet.”

“Fuck it, I’m not getting shot by a douche,” Eleanor snarled, taking out her sidearm as they crossed the street towards the gate of the mysterious parish. 

Flint tried the door but it remained locked. He gestured for Eleanor to go around the left side of the building while he took the right, his own gun at the ready and stalking along the shadows like a shadow himself. Behind the church was a small cemetery plot dotted in rows of uniform graves. He spotted Dufresne in the corner, busying himself next to a worn headstone. Eleanor’s hooded head peeked out from the other side of the building, gesturing to him.

 _Do not approach_ , he signalled her. 

Quiet and lanky like a fox, Eleanor’s form crouched behind a large tombstone, visible only to Flint from his position. 

_Get back!_ , Flint signalled her again.

As Dufresne continued fussing around the grave, Eleanor had taken out her phone and appeared to be either making photos or a video of the graveyard goings on. A few bats flew out of the belfry, startling them all. Eleanor dropped her phone on the ground, while Dufresne whirled around, attempting to pierce the darkness with his weak eyesight.

“Who’s there?” the weasel squealed in a thin voice.

Flint had pressed himself into the wall of the church, looking up at the stars while he held his breath. It was a beautiful night and the moon shone brightly enough to let them make out the name on the tombstone where Dufresne stood.

_ALLERDYCE_

A series of quick footsteps came towards him and Flint clenched his fists, ready to knock the weasel unconscious if he was about to get discovered. As luck would have it, the steps had chosen a different path around the parish. Flint peaked out and beheld an empty cemetery. He quietly walked back towards the small gate, making sure Dufresne was well and truly gone, and then turned back, walking until he stood before the abandoned grave of one long departed Allerdyce.

“Did you bring a shovel?” Eleanor asked, peeking out from behind a nearby tombstone in such an abrupt way that Flint nearly fell over.

“Jesus, Guthrie! I’m old enough to have a heart attack!” He knelt on the grass and touched the damp ground at his feet. “Neither did Dufresne. He wasn’t digging anything up.”

“Then what? He’s not strong enough to lift the tombstone.” Eleanor walked around the gravesite, shining a flashlight around the scene of the strange occurrence. “The slab?” 

They knelt at the foot of the grave and felt around the small slab that lay right beneath the date of death of the departed. The stone shifted under their fingers and soon Flint was pushing it completely out of the way to uncover a long, black box hidden in the shallow, damp earth. 

“This is a bit macabre,” Eleanor grimaced. “If that thing is full of body parts…”

Flint lifted the lid all too easily. The light of the moon cast its glow on tightly rolled wads of cash and stacks of casino chips in rather large denominations. Flint whistled.

“Holy fuck?” Eleanor exhaled. “Did we just find the Douche’s treasure trove?”

“Wanna bet this is all ill-begotten gains?”

“Too bad we can’t seize it because we technically did not find it during a commission of a crime,” Eleanor pointed out.

“Trespassing?” Flint suggested.

“A bit weak. Hey, take some of that loot. We should have it fingerprinted, just in case.”

“You’re a genius, Guthrie.” Flint pulled a rubber glove out of his pocket and picked up some chips along with a roll of cash. “If nothing else, this will get us a warrant for that wiretap I’ve been begging for over the past month.”

Eleanor’s hand was on his shoulder. “Let us take a moment,” she said.

“What for?”

“To appreciate how fucking weird this moment is.”

He looked down at the hidden loot, then back into Eleanor’s eyes. “Glad we could share it, Guthrie,” he said with a grin.

***

Flint was flying high on the temporary glow of unexpected success. He could smell they were getting closer. If not to unraveling the ridiculous Hornigold investigation (did anyone even miss that giant lech?), then at least to something else potentially juicy. He was letting it go to his head a bit, but he’d long ago learned to seize on to any good feeling, no matter how fleeting. Buoyed in such a way, he walked up to the extravagant set of french doors, and rang the doorbell.

It was close to midnight.

He had not been expected.

Perhaps he had galloped away upon the stallion of his own ego.

“Lieutenant,” Silver opened the door, his smile as bright as the stars over their heads. “Are you here on police business? Because I’ll have to ask you to leave and come back at a more reasonable hour.”

Flint’s breath trembled inside him as he finally exhaled. “No… and yes? You said we should be partners.”

“I did say that,” Silver conceded, inclining his head. His hair fell in a cascade of curls over his face and he stepped out of the way. “Come in.”

Flint followed him into the recesses of the house. He could not for the life of him conceive what a man would do in a space this large entirely alone. Of course, it had been rather presumptuous on his part to assume that Silver, of all people, would’ve been alone. 

“Are you… Is it all right for me to be here?” he stammered, blushing furiously at his own sudden onslaught of awkwardness.

Silver laughed. “The strippers and hookers are long gone, if that’s what you’re asking.” They walked into a kitchen that was the size of Flint’s livingroom and Silver pulled two glass bottles out of the fridge. “Beer? I assume you’re off duty.”

“Thank you,” Flint pronounced with sincerity.

Silver grabbed a well-worn sweatshirt off the back of the couch and draped it over himself, disappearing underneath the thick material. “We can talk by the pool,” he explained. “I like looking at the water.”

 _I like looking at you_ , Flint almost said, but bit his tongue, instead taking a swallow of the lager from the bottle in his hand.

They’d settled into the lawnchairs, far enough to be respectable, yet still close enough that if either one of them was to stretch out his arm, the other one would be easily within reach. The night before, during the stakeout, the moon had been almost full. Flint could not see the moon now, but he imagined it would be a perfect circle looming above their heads if he were to turn around. He could blame whatever may come on the full moon later.

“Dufresne’s up to something,” he finally said. “He has a hidden stash of loot in a very ridiculous sort of a hiding place.”

“Is he stealing my money?” Silver asked. “Should I be concerned?”

“He’s likely stealing _someone’s_ money. Your husband helped Scarface launder money through his casino.”

“Sounds like a likely story,” Silver chuckled.

“Did you really not know anything about this? You can get immunity if you testify against them, you know.”

“Immunity?” Silver rolled his eyes. “If I testify against Scarface, you’ll have to put me in WITSEC, and to be honest, Lieutenant, I don’t really trust the police to be able to protect me.”

“You just don’t want to have to give all of this up,” Flint gestured towards the pool and the villa.

“Can you blame me? I worked very hard to get these things. When you come from nothing, and you suddenly get everything, you hang on to it with tooth and nail, James.”

“Where did you come from?” Flint asked, frowning at his bottle of beer.

“I have a better idea,” Silver suddenly rose from his lounger and pulled his sweatshirt over his head, tossing it down and quickly divesting himself of the rest of his clothes with practiced ease. “Oh come on, don’t tell me you object to this!”

“What are you doing?” Flint asked preposterously, when it was very obvious what Silver was doing. Flint’s mouth and throat were parched and his ribcage tightened around his heart. 

“Going for a swim.”

Flint swallowed.

“You should join me,” Silver winked and dove gracefully into his pool once he was entirely, gloriously naked. 

For almost a minute, he did not come up and Flint shifted uncomfortably, rising to come to the edge of the pool himself. At last, Silver’s dark head surfaced and he came up for air, his hair flung back off his long neck like some kind of an exotic mermaid. He laughed, his blue eyes sparkling with known mischief, and swam closer towards the edge of the pool, where Flint was still standing.

“Come on in, Lieutenant, the water is fine.”

“I really shouldn’t,” Flint said, each word a new stab of betrayal.

“No one needs to know. Come on,” Silver cocked his head to the side like a dog begging for a treat. “We can recreate the pool scene from _Showgirls_ , only much hotter and less ridiculous.”

Flint, god help him, actually let out a tiny whine. 

“I’m going to think you’re only using me to solve this investigation,” Silver pouted and backstroked into the middle of the pool while beads of cold sweat stood out on Flint’s forehead. 

_Jesus_ , he wanted that man. So badly that it terrified him.

“All right,” Flint conceded cautiously. He slipped his jacket off his shoulders, neatly folding it and placing it down upon the lounger. “But you have to turn around. You don’t get to watch me strip.”

“I’ve never met such a control freak,” Silver giggled in between blowing bubbles over the surface of the water. “And I was married to Benjamin Hornigold.”

“Don’t compare me to fucking Hornigold,” Flint mumbled while unbuttoning his shirt and undoing his belt buckle. He had already unstrapped his sidearm and placed it gingerly next to his jacket and his phone. Therefore, he already felt more naked than he’d felt all day.

“You’re a much better kisser than he was,” Silver’s voice traveled across the water.

“Yeah, well, I better fucking be,” Flint groused, still not turning around. “You’re looking right at me, aren’t you?”

“I can’t help it. I told you I was an opportunist.”

Flint could not help but let out a bark of spontaneous laughter at that. He removed his shirt, also folding it neatly, and placing it over his jacket. The heat lamps were on around the pool, but the chilly midnight air still made him aware of just how hard his nipples had gotten. The water would be warm. Silver’s body would be warm.

Flint was going to fall into the pool if he wasn’t careful.

He kicked off his shoes, rolled down his socks and looked back over his shoulder. Silver’s head was bobbing up and down in the water with a smug expression on his face. “God damn it,” Flint muttered, and finally pulled down his jeans and underwear at the same time, leaving it in a pile in front of their lawnchairs. Then he cannonballed into the pool.

Silver was laughing across from him, playing like a wet siren underneath a small fountain in the shape of a very threatening looking fish, closer to a shark than a dolphin. 

“You’re a fucking menace, Lieutenant Flint.”

Flint shook out his hair and rubbed the water out of his eyes as he surfaced. The water really was warm and he felt incredibly awake, in a way that he wasn’t sure he’d been awake in quite some time. This was not the alertness of a cold shower. This was the feeling of waking up from a dream to a reality that was equally appealing.

He made a few powerful strokes and in a moment he was on top of Silver, wrapping that siren into his arms, his hands brushing the wet curls away so he could drink his fill of his kisses even while the bizarre shark fountain spewed all over the two of them. They were both laughing. It felt so good to laugh that Flint almost cried.

“I don’t care if you killed Hornigold,” he confessed right into Silver’s open and giving mouth. Their cocks slid close together under the water and nestled against each other like snuggling eels. Everything about being this close to John Silver felt right, as if his entire body had been waiting for this moment since the day he was conceived.

Silver’s hands moved soothingly over his back and shoulders. “Oh my, Lieutenant, I’m not sure I like what that says about you as a person,” he mumbled softly, his mouth worrying at the hinge of Flint’s jaw.

Flint pulled back, drunk on the way Silver’s body felt against him, his hands firmly placed around the perfect globes of that incredible ass as Silver’s thighs wrapped around his hips.

“I’m not sure I like it either,” he admitted and laughed as Silver leaned in to claim his lips with his own, mouth slick and ravenous as they pressed together and attempted to stay afloat.

“You should fuck me,” Silver purred against his ear, making Flint’s heart stutter and his limbs weaken. “Fuck me right now. I don’t care if you’re a total sociopath.”

“Same,” Flint mused agreeably.

But, of course, as all perfect moments in his life, this one too was not meant to last, interrupted as it was by the incessant ringing of Flint’s phone.

“Don’t you dare,” Silver’s teeth latched onto Flint’s earlobe as he attempted to move.

“I have to…”

“You’re off duty, it can wait.”

“No, it’s Guthrie,” Flint sighed. “She has her own ringtone.”

Silver slipped from around Flint’s hips and graced him to a look of misery and betrayal. The phone stopped ringing for the briefest period and then began again with renewed vigor, while Flint scrambled to get out of the pool.

“Guthrie,” he picked it up, breathing heavily. “What’s up?”

“I just heard something on Douche’s wiretap that I had to tell you right away,” her voice, usually so smooth and composed, sounded frantic. “The mob is onto him about the stolen loot and the fucking weasel just pointed the finger at your loverboy.”

“Silver?”

Flint dripped across the patio, attempting to find some place where they could speak privately.

“You’re off duty!” Silver hollered from the pool, spraying Flint with chlorinated water.

“Is that..?” Eleanor gasped. “Fucking hell, Flint, are you with him right now?”

He grabbed his pants and had moved into the house, closing the patio door behind him. “Are they coming for him?” he asked.

“It’s not safe. You should both get out of there,” Eleanor was saying.

“Call it in,” Flint said pulling his pants back on. “If they’re coming for him here, we can finally arrest them in the act.”

“I don’t like you being there, Flint.”

“I can take care of myself. Call it in, Guthrie.”

“Ten-four but get out of there.”

The line went dead as Eleanor clicked off. Flint placed the phone down to properly zip up his jeans, buckle his belt, and towel off his hair in the bathroom.

“John, we gotta go!” he hollered across the house. “Get out of the pool!”

He stepped out of the bathroom when the wind was knocked out of him by a metal pipe connecting with his stomach. The last thing he felt was a bag being forced over his eyes as something heavy hit him over the head from the back. He had no time for even a last, embittered thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no! A cliffy! :PPPP


	6. Chapter 6

The first thing Flint had to grudgingly admit to himself was that he was still alive. It was a bit disappointing, since right after having seen and felt John Silver’s naked body would have been the ideal moment to kick it. Surely, it would all be downhill from there. The fact that he appeared to be tied to a chair and still wearing a sack over his head seemed to support this theory.

Flint took a deep breath and attempted to hone his other senses. He was cold, although that could be explained by the fact that he was shirtless and wet when he was taken.

 _Silver!_ Jesus Christ, what had these fucking mobsters done to him? He’d been alone in the pool last Flint saw him. It was more than likely he was dead. Then why wasn’t Flint?

Footsteps and muttered words, and then the sound of a code being punched in, followed by the opening of a heavy door. Even through the thick material of the sack, Flint was aware that a light had been turned on over his head.

“Why the fuck are there two of them, Utley?” a very fucking familiar voice asked.

“Well, boss, we weren’t sure exactly which man was Silver based on your description,” answered an unfamiliar voice - this Utley asshat. “So we took them both.” Flint wondered whether it had been Utley who’d punched him in the gut or perhaps the one who’d knocked him over the head. Such things were important, if only purely for issues of retribution.

“Jesus, Utley! You had one job. Go to the stripper’s house. Get the stripper!”

“Boss, you literally told me to bring the hot guy with the huge dick.”

Flint bit his lip to keep himself from laughing.

“And why are they both half naked?” the familiar voice continued his inquiry.

 _Silver is alive and right next to me._ Flint breathed easier.

“That’s just how we found them, sir. They’d been swimming, I think.”

“Fuck’s sakes,” the original interlocutor cursed. “I need to have a conversation with this man. I can’t be talking to him when his junk is on display.”

Flint had to bite his tongue again because letting loose a quip about being intimidated by Silver’s manhood would probably not win him any popularity contests at the moment. 

“Just throw your jacket over him, Utley, I’m begging you.” 

The sounds of shuffling and then a cocky reply, “Thank you, Utley.” _Silver._

“Mr. Silver, you’re awake.” Flint was beginning to place the grating sounds of that voice. They must have hit him on the head pretty hard for him not to realize who had been speaking right away. Fucking Rogers. “I’m so sorry for the way we had to meet. I was sure my men would have had the courtesy to allow you to get dressed more… ah… thoroughly. And who’s your friend here?”

“No one of any importance,” Silver replied. “In fact, you should probably just let him go right now. He has nothing to do with this… whatever this is.”

Flint almost laughed again. Silver tried his best, but Rogers wasn’t an actual idiot. Flint wasn’t getting out of there alive, especially once they…

“Take off his hood, Utley.” _Fuck._ “Let’s have a look at Mr. Silver’s attractive and well-hung friend here.”

“Wait!” Silver’s voice rose a pitch. “Once you take off his hood, he’ll see you. Right now he has no idea who you are, so if you let him go, he can’t identify you.”

“I can’t take my chances, Mr. Silver,” Roger’s voice was full of audible sneer. “Take off the hood, Utley.”

A bright light made Flint squint and when his eyes began to focus it was on a rather handsome face of an utter stranger. Utley was a very attractive mobster. It almost made Flint forgive him for whatever violence he’d done unto to him earlier.

“Utley, you utter fucking imbecile!” Woodes Rogers exploded. “You brought a fucking cop here!”

“What?”

“A cop? He’s not a cop,” Silver attempted, because apparently hope really was the last thing to die. “You’re tripping, Rogers.”

Flint made a mental note of the fact that Silver was sporting nothing but his sweatshirt, with Utley’s jacket flung casually over his lap.

“Listen, _Long John_ , if I did not need you to actually speak to tell me what I need to know, I’d have Utley here gag you again!” He took a few steps and blocked out the light with his significant height. “What a surprise seeing you under these circumstances, Lieutenant Flint. And what, pray tell, were you doing in the nude in Mr. Silver’s villa in the middle of the night?”

“Sunbathing,” Flint spat out. Rogers punched him right in the face.

“Shoot him, Utley.”

“You can’t shoot him, are you fucking mad?” Silver interjected. “If he really is a cop, do you know what kind of shit you’d be getting yourself and everyone around you into?”

“You’re really in no position to be giving me advice, Silver,” Rogers snarled. “Utley, did I fucking stutter?”

“Look! Just!” Silver panicked next to Flint. “You don’t have to do this. What do you want? I’ll give it to you. Just… don’t… just tell me what you want, all right?”

“The money you’ve been skimming off the top of my operations,” Rogers hissed into Silver’s face. “Where is it?”

“You think _I’ve_ been skimming…?” Silver laughed. “Are you daft? What the fuck do you even think I know about your operation? I’m no-one, from nowhere. I don’t skim and I sure as shit don’t fuck with the mob. That shit was between you and Benny.”

“Yeah, well, you _killed_ Benny,” Rogers’ grin cut across the scar on the left side of his face.

“Fuck you!” Silver replied. At least he was consistent on this topic, Flint thought.

“Utley!” Rogers straightened out. “Why has Flint not been shot yet?”

“Sorry, boss,” Utley shrugged and pointed the gun at Flint’s head.

“I know who has your money,” Flint said. “And I even know where it’s hidden,” he continued when Utley lowered the gun and he was sure he had all of Rogers’ attention. “I’ll fucking draw you a treasure map myself if you just let him go. He had nothing to do with it.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you - why?” Rogers asked.

“Believe me or not, you’re free to shoot me anytime. But I’m the only person in this room who knows where your money is, so take your fucking chances of figuring it out without me,” Flint replied through his teeth. “And besides, the twink is right: if you shoot me, you’re gonna have the entirety of the Vegas PD up in your biz for all eternity. You’ll be sleeping with your ass to the wall the rest of your days.”

“Now that, I’ll take my chances with,” Rogers said, taking out his own gun when a knock was heard on the door. “I may need to kill you when I return. In either case, it might be good for all of us to reflect for a few moments. Utley, who’s there?”

“Melvin Dufresne, boss.”

Rogers smirked with half his ugly mug and pointed his gun first at Flint and then at Silver. “To be continued. Don’t go anywhere, gentlemen.”

He turned the light off on his way out, like the prick that he was.

***

“Well, this is romantic,” Silver was the first to break the loud silence in the impenetrable darkness.

“We’re both gonna fucking die in here,” Flint replied and tested the ropes with which he was tied to the chair. The ropes held. Assholes.

“We’re not dead _yet_ ,” Silver pointed out.

“Your best chance is to just roll on Dufresne. He’s the one who fingered you to Scarface. He’s the reason we’re both here.”

“That fucking weasel,” Silver muttered. “I was always so _nice_ to him.”

“Yeah, I bet you were,” Flint chuckled. “Well, let that be a lesson: don’t ever be nice to anyone, that way you can’t be disappointed when they turn around and stab you in the asshole.”

“That’s awfully cynical.”

“Says the man currently tied to the chair and not wearing any pants?”

“Well, you might have a point there.”

The sound of a chair scraping and bumping against the floor startled Flint. “The fuck are you doing?”

“Coming closer to you.”

“You wanna get shot?”

“If I get shot, at least it’ll be while I was closer to you.”

“You really do have a very warped sense of the romantic,” Flint replied, biting the smile off his own lips. “Not to mention, nothing actually discourages you, including threat of death.”

“I want to tell you a story,” Silver said quietly. “You once asked me to tell you something true about myself.”

Flint held his breath. “Go on.”

“You know the first time we met? When Miranda Barlow and I came to the precinct?”

“Yeah?”

“That actually wasn’t the first time I saw you.” Flint could hear the smile in Silver’s voice as he spoke. It occurred to him that he could envision himself listening to the sound of that voice for the rest of his life. Which, given his current circumstances, wasn’t saying much. “The first time I saw you was when some of the boys and I were out on the town. The Venetian, I believe. Yes, I clearly remember the ridiculous gondolas now in that shallow canal. There was a loud cacophony on the casino floor. Billy is the type who runs towards trouble instead of away from it, and the rest of us just followed him. That was when I saw you. You’d been beating a man to a bloody pulp. It was wild. Your hair was a mess, you were practically frothing at the mouth, half your face was covered in this fucking guy’s blood. I think three dudes had to pull you off of him.”

“Singleton,” Flint said. “He had it coming.”

“Oh, I have no doubt,” Silver chuckled. “The truth of it is, I found myself standing there, in the middle of The Venetian’s casino, sporting the biggest boner of my life. Now, I don’t know what that says about me, but _fuck_ , I wanted to touch you so bad. This guy was on the floor, bleeding out, and all I could think of was comforting _you_. What’s that all about, huh?”

“I got suspended for three weeks,” Flint said in a hushed voice. “Questionable use of force.”

“You beat that man to death with your bare hands. And I just wanted to kiss you,” Silver continued. “I wanted to wipe his blood off your face and tell you how beautiful you were. But I had already started fucking Benny and it seemed kinda foolish to derail what I had going for a chance at a roll in the hay with an unhinged police officer.”

“Well, I can’t fault you there,” Flint admitted. “They’d forced me into therapy for six months after that.”

“So anyways…” Silver sighed. “I just wanted you to know that, if we’re both going to _die_ in here and all.”

Flint tensed his muscles and made his chair hop slightly to the right. Silver’s soft chuckle sounded very close to his ear now. Another desperate shove, and Silver’s shoulder touched Flint’s.

“You’re not gonna die in here,” Flint said.

Silver’s head fell against his shoulder, thick curls tickling Flint’s neck. “Have I ever mentioned to you that I’m hyperflexible?”

“Are you trying to make me rue my self-restraint?” Flint asked.

“No, but if you could help loosen this rope even slightly, I could slip through and untie us both.”

“You little shit.”

But before he had the chance to even attempt reaching Silver’s ropes, he heard the sound of the combination lock, the door had opened, letting in the loud din that Flint finally recognized as distant noise of the casino, and then the lights flickered on and a giant weasel entered the room.

***

When James had been a little boy, he had cracked another kid’s head open with a toy truck. They had been on the playground and this little shit kept pestering a small, blond boy who just wanted to be left alone to building his sandcastles. The sandcastles themselves were magical. James often admired them when all the other kids would go home, and sometimes build moats around the castles and pictured them full of boats protecting the magical kingdom from all comers. But the little hooligan just walked right up to the blond boy and stomped on the sandcastle with his brutish little foot. That was when James picked up his toy truck, tackled the transgressor to the sand, and hit him over the head with all his might.

He’d gotten in trouble, of course, but after his father was through giving him a thrashing, he was still allowed to play with the blond boy on the playground every day. One day they had filled the moats with water and put James’ toy ships in there. The magical kingdom had been saved.

In some ways, Flint supposed, he could have very easily ended up on the wrong side of the law. The line between cops and robbers wasn’t always as clear in adulthood as it had been in childhood. He did not know what had become of the blond boy - Thomas, his name had been - because his family moved away when James was ten and they never saw each other again. But he sometimes still thought about the sandcastles.

***

Rogers and Utley entered behind Dufresne and locked the door. 

“Gentlemen,” Rogers spoke with a murderous twinkle in his eye. “It appears we’ve had a bit of a change in circumstances.”

“You’ve changed your mind and you’re going to let us both go?” Silver asked, hopefully.

“Not a bit.”

“Oh, had to try.” Silver sighed.

“You both know Mr. Dufresne here, don’t you?”

Flint and Silver exchanged a look. “Uh… yeah?” Flint replied for them both.

“Mr. Dufresne just explained to me that this whole thing has been, indeed, a bit of a misunderstanding between friends,” Rogers continued with an ugly leer. 

“The fuck did you tell him?” Silver asked his departed husband’s partner.

“I told him the truth,” Dufresne finally spoke, glaring at Silver. “I told him how Benny used to steal money from his operations. I told him that I killed Benny for him. And as a reward for my loyalty, Mr. Rogers has now gifted me with the opportunity to kill you as well.”

“Seriously?” Silver looked at Rogers then at Flint. “You’re gonna let the Douche kill me? The indignity of that alone!”

“Rogers, don’t be an ass!” Flint shouted. “Dufresne is lying to you!”

“As long as I get my money back,” Rogers shrugged and handed the gun over to the weasel. “Well, don’t have too much fun, Dufresne. We’ll see you when you’re done.”

Rogers and his flunkie walked out without another look and Flint had to agree with Silver: getting killed by Mellie the Douche would be an ignominious death. He was already beginning to plot his revenge from the great beyond. He would haunt the fuck out of this joint. 

“Fine specimen you are,” Silver growled. “Shooting a man while he’s tied up and not even wearing pants!”

“It was true what I said, you know,” Dufresne spoke, adjusting his round glasses on the ridge of his treacherous nose. “I did kill Benjamin. But I didn’t kill him for the money and I sure as shit did not kill him for Rogers.”

“Not that I give a particular fuck under the circumstances,” Silver rolled his eyes, “but all right. I’m a sucker for a murder mystery in which the villain monologues. Tell me, Mellie, why did you do it?”

“You stupid whore, I did it because of _you_!” Dufresne exploded, shoving the gun right under Silver’s chin.

“I don’t believe you,” Flint said with a laugh. “You weren’t physically strong enough to kill a man of Hornigold’s size. You’re full of shit, Dufresne.”

Distracted, Dufresne stepped away from Silver and pointed the gun at Flint. “Oh, your turn is coming, Lieutenant Flint!”

“Seriously,” Flint continued undeterred. “How the hell would a man as weak as you be able to overpower someone so much bigger than them? You just said that to Rogers to keep him from killing your thieving little ass!”

Flint glanced over at Silver who gave him a barely perceptible nod.

“Well, for one thing, Benny trusted me,” Dufresne explained, waving the gun around like a madman. “It was easy enough to get him to drink that drugged wine. When he was asleep, I strangled him with his own belt. The truth is, I did not actually want him to suffer. But I could not bear to see him with this little _harlot_ anymore!” He cast a hateful look towards Silver. “Can you believe he actually thought he was in _love_ with you! I gave him _everything_ and he loved _you_!”

“Bullshit,” Flint said, forcing Dufresne’s attention back towards himself. “You moved his huge carcass into the bed yourself? Hornigold would’ve been difficult to move alive, but shit… How are your chiropractic bills stacking up?”

“Yes, you fucking asshole!” Dufresne yelled, shoving the gun in Flint’s face. “Yes, I moved his fucking body! There is no limit to what a man can do when filled with righteous purpose! I loved Benjamin, and he married that _whore_!”

Flint ducked his head just as a chair connected with Dufresne’s. True to his word, Silver had managed to slip through the ropes and now stood over the Douche’s prone form holding a broken chair in his hand.

“I’m not a whore!” he hollered as he brought the chair on Dufresne’s head over and over again until there was nothing left but blood and pulp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close to the end! I'm going to post Chapters 7 & 8 together for you guys. Sorry for making you suffer but I still have to edit them ;)


	7. Chapter 7

“John!”

Silver slammed the chair against the bloodied and broken body again.

“John!” 

Silver stopped, his breath wheezing in his lungs, and spat out his own hair that had gotten lodged in his mouth. He looked at Flint with eyes that were dark and unseeing. 

“Quick, untie me!”

Silver let the chair fall to the floor and then proceeded to drop to his knees at Flint’s side, attempting to loosen the knots with trembling fingers.

“Are you all right?” Flint asked, looking sideways upon the mess of curls. Silver’s hands were covered in sprays of Dufresne’s blood, as was his face.

“I’m… fine… _fuck_! I can’t get these loose.”

“Forget it, get his gun,” Flint ordered. 

Silver dove across the floor, but not soon enough. The door flew open and Rogers with several armed flunkies burst into the room, pointing an entire arsenal of firearms at Silver’s face. Rogers’ foot was on top of Silver’s hand and he methodically extracted his gun from Silver’s lax fingers.

“Mr. Silver, you’re full of surprises,” Rogers’ eyes traveled down Silver’s body, to Dufresne’s bloody corpse, to Utley’s jacket lying forlornly on the floor. Rogers sighed and looked over at his goons. “Grab him and hold him down.”

“Rogers!” Flint shouted, needing all those guns turned on him immediately, while two men grabbed Silver and wrestled him to the floor. “That dead douche on your floor was the only person in the world other than myself who could tell you where your fucking money is.”

“What’s your point, Lieutenant Flint?”

“My point is that I’ll never tell you if you hurt him. That’s a significant amount of cash, isn’t? Close to ten million bucks?”

“Over ten million,” Rogers snarled. 

“You’ll never see it again if you don’t let him go,” Flint promised.

Rogers walked up to Flint, bending down to fix upon Flint’s face with his beady, homicidal eyes. Flint had an uncomfortable feeling that he was looking into a distorted funhouse mirror. _There but for the grace of god go I_ , occurred to him. He was going to miss Miranda and her Bible verses in Hell.

“You want to know what I think, Lieutenant? I think you’re going to tell me exactly where that money is _because_ you don’t want me to hurt your fucktoy there.” His gun pointed in Silver’s direction.

Flint closed his eyes. “You’re wrong. He’s a suspect and a fucking crook himself. He means nothing to me.”

“Is that so?” Rogers smiled with a truly shit-eating grin. He had one of those faces that Flint wished he could say only a mother could love, only it wasn’t entirely true. Rogers may have been handsome once, but providence had decided to make his outside resemble his inside, which was gnarled and distorted, like some dog’s chew toy.

“Knowing where that money is - that’s the only thing currently keeping me alive. And I’m not telling you shit until you guarantee my safety.”

“Oh, changing your tune now, Detective?” Rogers unfurled and walked across the room where his flunkies were still holding Silver face down on the floor. He knelt and placed the muzzle of his gun against the back of Silver’s left thigh. “Tell me where the money is right now or your special friend here will be doing his little strip show for you on one leg.”

“Fuck off, Rogers!” Silver laughed from the floor. “Don’t tell him anything, James.”

Flint’s thoughts raced. He could talk and spare Silver whatever torture Rogers couldn't wait to inflict on him, and then get popped himself. Or, he could talk and still have Rogers kill them both because he was a known bastard. Or, he could stay silent and take this secret to his grave. Spite was always a powerful motivator, but Flint still saw no way out of the situation that guaranteed Silver's safety. 

Rogers’ eyebrow lifted as he looked towards Flint again, digging the muzzle deeper into Silver's thigh with sadistic glee. “You have three seconds. Three… two…”

“Wait…” Flint spoke haltingly.

“One.”

The gunshot was not loud; Rogers was using a silencer. It was Silver’s scream that was deafening. Blood drained from Flint’s face and bile rose up in his throat. His vision went black, then red. He was going to kill him, he was going to fucking _kill_ that bastard!

“LAS VEGAS PD, SHOW ME YOUR FUCKING HANDS!”

Rogers, his face wearing the distorted mask of maniacal laughter, turned his gun on Eleanor, but not before she had discharged her own weapon. Blood sprayed from Rogers’ arm as his gun tumbled to the ground.

“Gun!” Flint shouted a timely warning as Utley attempted to reach for his own arm. Just then, the room was filled with uniformed officers, among them Rackham and Read, who had charged around Eleanor to cuff the bleeding Rogers while the rest of his goons surrendered.

“Woodes Rogers,” Eleanor spat out in his face as Rackham hauled him up to his feet. “You’re under arrest for abduction, attempted murder, and racketeering.”

“Good lucking getting those charges to stick!” Rogers shouted with defiance.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Eleanor said, and, without missing a beat, kicked him right in the balls.

“That was total self defense,” Read nodded.

“Yeah, I saw it too,” Rackham agreed, dragging Rogers outside.

The ringing in Flint’s ears subsided and his vision cleared as his wrists began to ache from where he had attempted to rip his bonds apart but to no avail.

“Is anyone going to untie me?” Flint finally asked while Eleanor holstered her gun and walked over to him.

“Nice to see you too, daddy.” She knelt at his side and pulled out a blade from her belt. 

“Guthrie, I’ve never been more happy to see you in my life.”

“What a fucking cliché thing to say,” she laughed, cutting Flint’s bonds and throwing her arms around him. “I thought we were gonna be too late,” she breathed against his neck. “Thank god we’d gotten that wiretap on the Douche, huh?”

“Eleanor,” Flint kissed her on the top of her head. “I owe you a bevy of drinks, but right now…” He extricated himself and immediately moved across the room, to where a uniformed officer was attempting to make a bleeding John Silver comfortable. “Has the ambulance been called?” 

“They’re on their way.”

Flint started to unbuckle his belt while Silver, weak and pale-faced, looked up at him from the floor. “I really don’t think now is the time,” he said with a frail smile.

“I’m trying to make a tourniquet, you idiot,” Flint said, kneeling at his side and pulling his belt around Silver's wounded thigh in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.

“Who did _this_?” Eleanor asked, pointing at Dufresne’s pulverized body.

It was then that Silver began to close his eyes. “John!” Flint grabbed him by the shoulders. “Come on, don’t do this. John… please.” He cradled Silver’s head in his lap as he watched with growing horror as life slowly drained out of him. “Don’t go,” he repeated the words from his stairwell to Silver. “Please, don’t go.”

***

The chairs at the hospital were far too comfortable. Flint shifted, attempting to mount another defense against the onslaught of sleep. Quietly, Eleanor took his hand in hers, pressing gently with her fingers around his trembling tendons. 

“You should just get some sleep,” she whispered into his ear. “I'll wake you if the surgeon comes out.”

“You don’t have to stay here,” he told her. 

“Well, you're an idiot if you think I'm leaving your side after what you just put me through.”

“Eleanor, I'm fine. I just....” He just. He needed the surgeon to come out.

“I know,” she said, still not letting go of his hand. 

“James!” Miranda stood over them both, holding a tray with three cafeteria coffees. She handed the tray to Eleanor and threw her arms around his neck as Flint rose to greet her. She'd been wearing her glasses and her face was makeup-free, as if she had just rolled out of bed. She was a sight for sore eyes, Flint decided. “Ellie called me and told me what happened,” Miranda said against his ear.

“Who?” Flint muttered through the haze of exhaustion and anxiety.

“Me,” Eleanor smiled, patting his shoulder and handing him one of the coffees. “Thanks, babe.”

“Of course, hon,” Miranda smiled at her. “I would have come sooner, but my car was almost out of gas. How is he?”

“Babe? Hon?” Flint repeated, looking from one woman to the other.

“He’s going on roughly thirty minutes of sleep, if you count the time he was knocked unconscious,” Eleanor explained to Miranda patiently. “But the doctors say he’s a pretty lucky bastard, all told. Just bruising, no concussion, no broken ribs. And Silver’s still in surgery.”

“Is it serious?” Miranda asked, pulling up a waiting room chair.

“Stop talking about me as if I weren’t here,” Flint grumbled. “And I’m still waiting for an explanation of the terms of endearment,” he pointed out.

“He has a gunshot wound to the thigh. It looked like a through and through,” Eleanor explained. “But he did lose a lot of blood before we were able to get him to the hospital. Flint, of course, already donated his blood, as if he needed to weaken himself further.”

“I’m a…”

“...Universal donor, I remember, sweetie,” Miranda told Flint, kissing him on the cheek.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Eleanor was saying to Miranda. “I know we were supposed to go on that hike tomorrow… today,” she added checking her watch. “I feel terrible, that’s twice now I had to bail on you because of this stupid case.”

“My best friend got abducted, and my client got shot, and you saved them both?” Miranda laughed. “Ellie, I’ve had to put up with much flimsier excuses in my day. I used to date men, remember?”

Flint almost spilled his coffee. “Wait a fucking minute! My best friend and my partner? And I’m just now finding out about this?”

Eleanor leaned over and gave Flint a soft kiss on the opposite cheek that Miranda kissed earlier. “I won’t tell Teach what a terrible detective you are if you don’t.”

“You banshees were giving me all that grief about Silver, but this whole time you'd been secretly dating?”

“We didn’t want to say anything because it’s so early on,” Miranda explained with a soft blush. “This is all so new and… we both love you so much, we did not want to upset the apple cart.”

“I’m not an apple cart. And Rackham’s right about lesbians,” Flint muttered, his eyes falling closed again.

“Bisexuals,” Eleanor corrected him.

“Sorry,” he mouthed, letting his head fall onto her shoulder as if it was a pillow. “Mmmm… You’re soft.”

***

_You are my angel_  
_Come from way above_  
_To bring me love_

Flint let the beat and lyrics of the Massive Attack song wash all over him as he stared up into the perforated ceiling of the ICU. 

_To love you love you love you_

The song bounced around in his brain, stretching each breath out almost as a meditative exercise. “Mezzanine” might have been almost twenty years old, but that album never failed to soothe the beast inside Flint whenever he felt like punching a wall or two.

He had sent Eleanor and Miranda home, and tried not to think about that too much. An array of machines that went “beep” were arranged around Silver’s bed. The hospital staff had removed most of the tubes and bells and whistles, but left the morphine drip in. The nice nurse with the red hair and an exceptionally long neck explained to Flint how to turn the morphine drip up if Silver awakened before she could check on him next, and then blessedly drew the curtains. Silver had not woken up, so Flint had resorted to Massive Attack for lack of actual walls to punch.

_To love you love you love you_

Flint caught movement out of the corner of his eye and pulled his earbuds out to discover Silver staring at him blearily, blinking with hazy uncertainty.

“Did I make it?” Silver’s parched lips moved and Flint was quickly at his bedside, handing him a cup of water with a conveniently positioned straw. He was supporting Silver’s head as if he were a newborn baby, watching him take a few sips as if this was the most important task he’d ever performed. “How do I look?” Silver attempted a smile.

“Terrible,” Flint admitted.

“Flatterer.”

Flint pulled his chair closer to Silver’s bed and took his hand into both his own. “You look like a dream,” he said softly. “I was worried sick about you.”

“My leg?” Silver reached for it tentatively.

“It’ll keep,” Flint reassured him. “You’ll have some pain and scarring but the doctors said they were able to repair any major damage, so you could always go back to… dancing again, if you chose.”

“That’s all you ever think about,” Silver teased, squeezing Flint’s hand. “Hey is that a morphine drip?” He jiggled his IV line.

“Yup.”

“Cool.”

A smile of ridiculous fondness spread across Flint’s face as he brushed Silver’s hair back from his brow. “You scared me, you shit.”

Silver blinked up at him slowly. The skin around his eyes had become dark and almost translucent. “Lie down next to me,” Silver beckoned, sluggishly attempting to turn over onto his side. “Come on. I’ve been shot. Don’t be a fucking asshole for once.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Flint whispered with a smile. He was already out of his chair and kicking off his shoes. There was never a chance of him _not_ getting into that hospital cot with Silver. “We’re gonna get in trouble.”

“Only if I push the CALL button.”

Silver’s words had been soft and languid. He had never seemed more fragile to Flint than at that moment, and yet this was the same man who had saved his life earlier. There was nothing fragile about him and never had been.

“How are you such an incorrigible brat?” Flint muttered softly into Silver’s curls as he wrapped his body around him.

Silver gave a small shrug and nuzzled into Flint’s chest, face pressed into the groove of his shoulder, breath tickling Flint’s neck with a steady stream of heat. He fit perfectly there, in Flint’s arms, just as he had when they were naked together in the pool. Flint imagined a myriad other ways that they could fit perfectly together. An endless galaxy of combinations.

“Please have dinner with me?” Silver asked with a small yawn.

Flint wiped at some unexpected bullshit in his eye. “I’ll have every meal of the day with you, when you get better,” he promised, pressing his lips to Silver’s clammy forehead.

“But I might go to prison?”

“What for?” Flint’s arms flexed protectively around Silver’s sleepy form.

“For killing the Douche?”

“You didn’t kill Dufresne,” Flint breathed gently against Silver’s charming and diminutive ear. 

“I didn’t?”

“No,” Flint shook his head and tilted Silver’s face up so he could look into the shimmering pools of those blue eyes. “I did.”

Silver held his gaze for a moment, his eyes dark and serious and stormy like the sea. Then he tilted his head back and opened his mouth just enough to grant Flint permission to kiss him. Flint’s mouth pressed against Silver’s, slotting with the lower lip trapped as Flint sucked and bit at it with cautious gentleness. Silver’s mouth was dry and his breath tasted exactly as you would expect a postoperative patient’s breath to taste, but Flint would never imagine wanting to stop kissing him. His hand gently traced the contours of Silver’s long neck, caressed the sharp curve of his jaw, tugged softly at his earlobes. Silver felt like a dream too. Flint wanted to stay right there, in that dreamlike state with him forever, because the real world was too dangerous a place for so tenuous a love.

“Don’t worry,” Silver purred. “I’m not going to die until you and I finally get a chance to have a proper go at each other.”

 _I think I’m in love with you_ , Flint didn’t say. But the way Silver was looking up at him, with his hand all fisted up in Flint’s shirt while the machine went softly “beep”, Flint suspected that Silver already knew that. Yeah, he knew.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I/you/we/they made it!

Woodes Rogers was going to jail for a very long time because no amount of money could in decency be fair bail for a man who had been witnessed by half of the police department to be _in media res_ abduction and attempted assassination of a police lieutenant. Not to mention the abduction and shooting of a civilian, which got tacked onto a laundry list so long of Rogers’ misdeeds that his attorneys did not even bother to contest it. And that was even before Utley had decided to roll on him in exchange for the DA being exceptionally lenient. Teach gave everyone involved in the raid a commendation and bought champagne from his own personal funds.

Flint had to go to mandated therapy again because of his completely justifiable and heroic, yet none the less brutal murder of Melvin Dufresne. Nevada’s self-defense laws definitely extended to beating an armed man to death with a chair, but Flint did not want to take any chances on that topic when he had told Guthrie he’d been the one responsible for the mutilated corpse. Not a single person in the precinct even questioned it, considering his checkered past.

He had decided to spend most of the mandated hours of therapy talking about Silver, because more than being a man with some anger management issues, he was also a man in love, and that was something he knew very little about. At least his therapist seemed knowledgeable in that department as she smiled at him softly and said, “You have never looked more alive than you do now. If I were you, Lieutenant, I would follow that man of yours wherever he may lead.”

“All roads lead to hell eventually, Dr. Scott,” Flint had treated his therapist to a dosage of his patented cynicism.

“For once, I do not actually think that you believe that.”

Flint’s smile was a reflection of hers. She held his gaze and wrote something down on a pad of paper.

“I’m going to clear you for active duty,” she said. “But on the condition that you keep seeing me once every two weeks for the next six months.”

“Seeing you is always my favorite part of beating someone to death,” Flint said, shaking her hand.

***

Flint’s car had pulled up to the villa and he hopped out to get Silver’s crutches out of the trunk. The strangest thing about the entire exercise was that nothing about it felt strange. With the exception of fighting with Silver over whether he was competent enough to get out of the vehicle without needing Flint’s help. But even that felt somehow natural.

A few minutes later, after taking down the police tape which still marked the site of their abduction as a CRIME SCENE, Flint found himself back in Silver’s enormous kitchen. The refrigerator could use a thorough once-over, but there was definitely food product in there that could still be salvaged into an edible lunch.

“Why don’t you go lie down,” Flint said, “I’ll make you something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Silver replied, his eyes fixed on the v-neck of Flint’s sweater and saying exactly the opposite of Silver’s lips. “And I’m not an invalid, you don’t have to take care of me.”

“I know you’re not, but you had nothing but hospital food for a week. Let me make you a god damn sandwich.”

Silver did not reply, merely swayed a bit, supported by his crutches. His newly dressed and bandaged leg hovered just above the floorboards. Flint thought Silver looked like he could really use a shave and a good night’s rest, without being poked and prodded by a small battalion of nurses.

“You know, you… don’t have to be here,” Silver said, cautiously, avoiding Flint’s eyes.

“I want to be here,” Flint replied quickly. “Besides, this is totally my fault, what happened to you. Making you a sandwich is really the least I can do.”

“See? I was afraid you thought that - that this is all your fault somehow.” Silver’s tone was simultaneously tinged with annoyance and sadness. “I don’t want you to be here out of some misplaced sense of guilt.”

“All right.” Flint put the plate away that he was going to use to make Silver lunch, despite his protests. “Tell me what you need.”

“I need you to take me to bed,” Silver said, his voice trembling. “Is that…? Is that something we’re allowed to do now?”

Before Silver was even done speaking that sentence, Flint was already at his side, ripping the crutches from his hands, and picking Silver up, throwing him over his shoulder like a proper caveman, and dragging him off to the bedroom while Silver laughed and flailed and called him all kinds of inventive things.

“My god, you’re a fucking brute!” Silver squealed as Flint tossed him down onto the mattress. 

“You didn’t want to be treated like an invalid,” Flint pointed out. “Ouch… I might have pulled a muscle. Whatever: worth it.” And he began to pull down Silver’s pants while the latter continued to squirm and giggle. “Be careful, let me just do this,” Flint insisted. “Fuck, it’s like unwrapping a present.”

Silver went still on the bed, his eyes darkening as he wet his lips. “Do I get to unwrap a present too?” 

Flint helped pull his shirt over his head to reveal all the beautiful, tanned skin, and the tiny nipples that already stood at attention and begged to be sucked and bitten. Silver’s hair fell wildly around his shoulders, and stood up from static created by the removal of his shirt. Flint was going to devour him.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” Flint said, his mouth as dry as the desert. Silver was his oasis. He would never be thirsty again. _God_.

Silver lay back against the pillows, letting Flint take in the entire sight of him, bereft of clothes. It was certainly not the first time Flint had seen him naked, but it was the first time that he’d seen him naked with the intent of fucking him within an inch of his life. His hand ran up Silver’s leg, starting at the high arch of his foot, over his shapely calf, across the surprisingly pleasurable, round knee, and finally over the velvety skin of his inner thigh until it landed on the bandages.

“We need to make sure you don’t hurt yourself,” Flint insisted quietly, meeting Silver’s eyes. “I have an idea,” he grinned and reached behind into a clip-on attached to his belt.

He picked up one of Silver’s hands and kissed the inside of his wrist before snapping the handcuff into place around it.

“Woah there, officer!” 

“Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted me to do to you?” Flint smirked and moved to snap the other half of the handcuffs to Silver’s headboard. “There, now you’ve been restrained for your own protection. Do you feel very safe?”

“I feel very something, I promise you that,” Silver said, his eyes growing wide as blood rushed to his cock and it filled out to partial hardness before Flint’s appreciative gaze. “James…?”

Flint stretched his body out over him, still fully clothed himself and regretting that particular life choice. But he also, in good conscience, could not wait a moment longer before kissing his fill at last.

“I’m going to taste you _everywhere_ ,” he threatened, before probing Silver’s tempting, willing mouth with his tongue. Silver moaned and arched into the kiss, his free hand immediately finding Flint’s thick hair and getting lost in it. “Gonna make you feel so much pleasure, you’ll forget all about that pain,” Flint gave Silver’s injured thigh a quick look.

“It’s already forgotten,” Silver sighed against his mouth. “Take off your fucking clothes, you god damn tease.”

Flint hurried to obey, his eyes never leaving Silver’s as he peeled himself like an onion and finally could press his naked body back against his… lover’s? Why was it so weird to think of Silver as his lover? They’d seen each other beat a man to death; what could be more intimate than that?

“James…” Silver’s voice sounded broken and desperate. “Fuck… James… touch me.”

Flint kissed Silver so hard, he almost forgot his own name. His entire body was nothing but his mouth as he slid his tongue along Silver’s, as he tasted his lips, his teeth, let his own lips get chafed from the bristles of his unshaven chin and cheeks. He made sure to memorize exactly what it felt, tasted, and sounded like to be kissing John Silver, before he began to map his way down his long and sinuous neck. This neck… this neck that his feverish dreams were made of, the swell of the Adam’s apple as it stabbed into his tongue, the tight cords that ran parallel and plunged deeply under the prominent collar bones. Flint made love bites bloom like roses across that sensitive skin, he sank his teeth into the meaty muscle of Silver’s shoulder, he buried his face in Silver’s exposed armpit and _licked_. Silver vibrated against him like the string of his many instruments, his body already composing a symphony of desire beneath the touch of Flint’s hands and lips.

“Christ… James… I’ve wanted you for so long,” Silver moaned, lost to sensation as Flint’s mouth moved across his chest, finally finding a nipple and sucking it in, letting his tongue flick at and circle the swollen nub as Silver arched violently against him.

“Ditto, baby,” was all Flint had time to say because he let his own poorly trimmed beard run across the sensitive nub and his ears were awash in expletives. He sucked a pink mark into Silver’s skin, _right there_ , and _fuck_ what a beautiful, dirty mouth this kid had. “I’m gonna make you feel so good,” Flint promised again, traveling lower and lower, mouth awash in the warmth and taste of Silver’s skin, until he finally found himself seated on his own heels between Silver’s thighs. “Is there anything you don’t want me to do?” he asked, biting his mustache in uncertainty.

“What…? Don’t… piss on me?”

Flint laughed. “All right, I’ll try not to.” He grabbed one of the pillows and gently shoved it underneath Silver’s hips, lifting his thighs carefully with his hands. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yes. Get on with it.”

“I want you to be comfortable because we’re going to be here for a long time. I have plans. I’ve had a long time to think about what I’d like to do to you.”

“I like a man with a well-thought-out strategy,” Silver wiggled his eyebrows and spread his thighs wider. “Go on. I trust you.”

Flint’s heart clenched at that, leaping rudely into his throat and suffocating him. When he could breathe again, he lowered his mouth to Silver’s right thigh and left a bright burgundy bruise there when he was finished. Silver’s cock lay proud and swollen against his tanned abdomen. The little minx was not just a shower, but also a grower, it seemed. Flint licked his lips with the resolve to pace himself. His fingers trailed softly over the folds of Silver’s groin, gently caressing his balls that hung flushed and heavy over his asshole. Flint let his thumbs spread Silver’s cheeks apart more, until the entire bud of his orifice presented itself to his hungry gaze. It was puckered, dark, and quivering, and Flint noticed with pleasure how the skin of Silver’s perineum was also dark, almost purple like certain varieties of the calla lily, and not bleached as was frequently the case with so many of the day’s strippers and porn stars. It was real, the way that Silver’s entire body was real. His body was the one true thing, Flint thought with a pang as he remembered their first kiss. And then he pressed his lips to the quivering opening of Silver’s asshole.

“Jesus… _fuck_!” Silver moaned like a dying man, his good leg digging into Flint’s lower back as he began to work his mouth over the opening. “James, oh _god_ , your mouth!”

It twitched against his lips, pulsated around his tongue as he stabbed it inside. Flint used his thumbs to help spread Silver wider, licked in and around his hole as if he was an all you can eat buffet, and then rubbed his beard over it all the way up to the balls to make Silver strain and swear again and again. He paused to take one of Silver’s balls in his mouth, licking and sucking at the heaviness against his tongue. There was a heady power to this, to be allowed this kind of control over another man’s body, that Flint relished. He dragged his beard down again, over the perineum and Silver’s begging, wet hole, and kissed it again with his whole mouth. He gathered his saliva and spat into the orifice, shoving in the tip of this thumb to stretch out the rim, before biting and chewing at the sensitive flesh, as Silver’s stream of curses ran dry, and he contented himself to whimpering and soft moans above Flint’s head.

Leaving his thumb inside Silver, Flint traveled back up to the tantalizing triangle of his groin. Silver had a birthmark right there, right over the sensitive skin of the fold, and Flint pressed his lips to it too, before he licked across the tightening lower abs, dipped into the warm hollow of the navel, dragged his nose over the coarse hairs of the pleasure trail. He wanted to kiss and memorize every part of this body because it was a gift from God. Flint was on the verge of becoming a very religious man indeed, happy to worship at this temple on his knees for all eternity. He supplicated the higher power by leaning forward and dragging his tongue over the throbbing, heavy underside of Silver’s beautiful, long cock, until he reached the flare of the head and wrapped his lips around it.

“God… please… yes…”

It appeared that Silver was having a religious experience of his own. Flint shoved his thumb deeper inside him while he sucked on the head of that gorgeous cock. Even Flint’s most explicit dreams did not compare to the reality of doing this, being able to taste all of Silver like this, being able to tongue at his slit where the pearly beads of desire were gathering as a harbinger of his imminent surrender. Flint’s mouth was full of Silver’s slick and his own drool as he bobbed up and down over that cock, letting the weight of it push his tongue down, hollowing his cheeks and taking him as far he could into his own throat. Flint needed to wrap his fist at the base of that monster to help him swallow it whole. Silver whinnied and bucked like an unbroken stallion underneath him, getting so close to the edge that his thighs were shaking from the effort. Flint pulled off, but only for a moment; he wanted to see what John Silver’s face looked like when he was about to come. Then he pulled his thumb out and shoved two fingers into Silver’s abused hole and dove back down to suck that gorgeous cock into his ravenous mouth, pulling a shuddering orgasm out of Silver and swallowing his seed down as greedily as he’d done everything else.

Flint looked up at Silver through his eyelashes and grinned complacently as he placed a soft kiss on his lover’s softening cock, and then another one on the inside of his thigh, against the bruise that bloomed there as of a few minutes ago. His fingers still languidly stroked Silver’s insides as he became aware of his own painful erection for the first time since he’d started on this exploration of terra incognita.

“John,” he muttered into the soft skin of Silver’s groin. “Please… I really want to fuck you, if you think you can take it.”

“I would be offended if you didn’t.” Silver’s voice was a soft, fucked-out purr above Flint’s head. 

Flint gathered himself and crawled back up to his knees in between Silver’s spread thighs. He removed his fingers, pressing his thumb against the quivering hole that appeared to beg to be filled again.

“Do you have lube?” he asked.

Silver nodded towards the bedside drawer. “You should also wear a condom," Silver said.

"All right,” Flint agreed, reaching into the drawer, “but I want you to know I'm clean... it's been a long time for me." He pulled the lube and a roll of condoms out of the drawer.

"It’s not you I'm worried about,” Silver said with a faint flush. “I'm the one who was a notorious, cheating dirtbag's personal sex toy. And before... well, I did not get into this situation because of clean living." 

No, Flint did not suppose he did. This was it: the past Silver had no intention of sharing with him, in about as much detail as he really needed. He was, after all, a detective, and therefore pretty good at putting two and two together.

"I don't care where you've been,” Flint said, looking into Silver’s dark eyes. “I only care about where we're going, together."

“I swear to God,” Silver said, pulling Flint down by the neck with his unshackled hand, “if you don’t fuck me right now, my ass will never speak to you again.”

“That would be a pity,” Flint mouthed against Silver’s lips, licking at the beautiful seam there, while his slickened fingers pressed into his orifice to prepare him with a few deep strokes. “Your ass says the sweetest things.”

He rolled the condom on and placed Silver’s thighs gently over his shoulders and, at long last, slid home.

***

It wasn’t that Silver could not afford his own personal nurse. It was rather that Flint would probably beat anyone who would dare touch Silver at this point with one of Silver’s own crutches. Possibly to death. Silver was his now, and Flint intended to take excellent care of him, so he had stopped by the local drug store to pick up supplies to change Silver’s dressings while he had been on a grocery run.

“Don’t you have to be at work? Isn’t there crime to be solved?” Silver teased, still sleep-warm and naked in his arms as Flint kissed him goodbye. It had been a few days, but Flint still could not believe his luck of getting to wake up next to that level of sexy bed-head every morning.

“I told you, I got some time off for bad behavior,” Flint winked. In truth, Teach was only too happy to sign off on his impromptu vacation. Teach was still flying high from putting Rogers away for good.

He had probably gotten more bandages and tape than was strictly necessary, but if they were going to be living together (which they both had somehow just _assumed_ after their first night back from the hospital), it was really only a matter of time before one of them got shot again. He also bought more lube, but had forgone the condoms: Silver’s tests had all come back negative from his stay at the hospital. It was nice to know his lover was so good at planning ahead, even while recovering from a gunshot wound.

“Babe, I’m back!” Flint shouted, pushing through the French doors with his arms brimming full of groceries.

“In here!” Silver hollered back from the living room and Flint turned towards his voice as if guided by sonar without even putting down the groceries.

“So, I bought us like a family sized bottle of Astroglide… Oh my god…” Flint stopped in the middle of the room because, in addition to Silver’s, four pairs of uninvited female eyes were looking right at him. “Hello, ladies.”

“Welcome to the hen party, darling!” Miranda saluted him with a champagne flute.

“What are we celebrating?” Flint asked with some distrust, taking in the scene. Other than Miranda and Eleanor, who was already walking towards him to take the bags out of his hands, there was Max Nassau, with Silver’s foot in her lap and giving him a very turquoise pedicure, and another scowling lesbian whom Flint had at last recognized as Rackham’s ex-wife, Anne Bonny. All in all, it was a downright sapphic convention.

“We have a lot to celebrate,” Eleanor replied, taking his bags into the kitchen, having given him a peck on the cheek.

“Ellie passed her Sergeant’s exam!” Miranda beamed with pride.

“That’s fantastic!” Flint said with sincerity, pulling Eleanor into a bearhug. “I’m proud of you, Guthrie. You’ll be running your own division before you know it.”

“And then of course there is New Year’s and your engagement,” said Max, drawing a heart in the air with the nailpolish brush.

“Our what?” Flint turned crimson.

“Don’t mind her, she’s French,” Silver giggled and reached his hand out towards Flint. “I missed you. Glad I had the girls to keep me company.” 

Flint took his hand and pressed it warmly. “But they should finish their champagne and leave. You need _rest_.”

“Oh, I _do_ ,” Silver leered in the subtlest way he could manage.

“You’re fuckin’ rude,” Anne pointed out. 

Flint shrugged. He did not mind a few more people questioning his manners if it meant he got to be touching Silver’s naked body sooner rather than later. “Happy New Year, ladies!”

“Before we go,” Eleanor pulled him aside. “Did you hear that Teach got recruited by the FBI? Some kind of a special task force.”

“Are you shitting me?” Flint rubbed his hand over his face. “I am gone literally three days and this happens? Who’s the huge wanker that’s gonna be running the department now?”

Eleanor gave him a blank look. “I thought… Teach really didn’t talk to you?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, everyone says it’s gonna be you.”

“Gonna be me who?”

“ _You_ you. You’re going to be the new captain. Captain Flint, huh? Has a ring to it.”

“Wait…” Flint was about to have a minor stroke when he heard Silver saying something else utterly incomprehensible from the living room.

“I’ll just keep whatever money I had that wasn’t so-called joint property. Just get me the paperwork as soon as you can, Miranda.”

“I’ll ask Ellie for Hornigold’s kids’ addresses then, shall I?”

“What are you two talking about?” Flint asked, approaching the couch again. At this rate, he was going to have to go over to Hal’s soon and have _so many_ drinks to process his new life. 

“I’ve decided to give away the rest of my ‘inheritance’ to Benny’s disowned children,” Silver explained. “This house was never really my home and now that we’re together… I’m sorry,” he paused with a frown. “I should have discussed this with you, right? This isn’t how to do the relationship thing. I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I should not presume you actually want to be saddled with all this _minus_ the money.”

“Um… we should go, honey,” Max rose, setting Silver’s feet down carefully. “Let that dry for a bit, okay? _Bisous_.” She gave Silver two kisses on each cheek and turned to Flint. “It is lovely to see you again, Lieutenant Flint.”

“Captain Flint,” Eleanor said with a small clearing of her throat behind him.

“I trust we will be seeing a lot more of you now that this entire murder case mess is behind us, yes?” Max smiled.

“Yes,” Flint nodded agreeably.

***

Once the smell of sapphic love and nailpolish evaporated, Flint picked up Silver’s crutches and offered him his hand. Silver leaned into his arms and the world fell away. Flint immediately forgot everything else that he would have otherwise spent all night worrying about.

But just this. This was enough.

“I’m sorry,” Silver’s voice was a hoarse whisper against his ear, even though they were alone. “I shouldn’t have assumed you’d just jump at the chance of taking care of me, living in some tiny shitshack together…”

“Shut up,” Flint said, sealing his lips with a kiss. “First of all, my apartment isn’t a shitshack.”

“Sorry…”

“Stop apologizing. I love you.”

For once, it appeared that the silky smooth bullshit artist had no retort. Silver’s stunned silence made Flint’s eye twitch.

“Perhaps that’s not what you wanted to hear…” he began, pulling away.

“ _You_ shut up. I love you too.” Silver’s fingers clenched around the lapels of Flint’s jacket. “You know that. You _must_ know that.”

Flint breathed again. “You don’t have to give away all your hard earned cash to prove it to me.”

“That’s not why… I just… I want a clean slate. No more ghosts.”

“No more ghosts,” Flint agreed. Silver’s mouth tasted like champagne and chocolate. “Come on, babe, let’s break in that Astroglide.”

“Lead the way, Casanova,” Silver tittered, leaning on Flint as they stumbled back to the bedroom.

Flint took a few moments to admire Max’s handiwork on Silver’s toes as they climbed into the bed, then pressed his lips to the rise of Silver’s midfoot. Silver sprawled on his back, eyelids lowered and lips parted, while Flint straddled his lap, pulling his pants off and tossing his own into the pile.

“I’m sorry I’m still healing so we can’t do this in many interesting positions,” Silver muttered, his hands stroking up Flint’s side with those obscenely long fingers.

“You need to stop apologizing to me for things that need no apology,” Flint answered with a frown. “Besides, I want you just like that: on your back.” He tossed the rest of his clothes into the pile and knelt between Silver’s legs, contemplating the titillating landscape spread out before him.

“It worked well last few times,” Silver agreed.

“I have something else in mind,” Flint smirked and reached for the bottle of lube.

Silver loved him. _Silver loved him._ Flint’s heart was so full, he wanted to take it out of his chest and hand it to this crazy boy because it suddenly felt too heavy a weight to bear. _When’s the last time you allowed yourself to feel truly vulnerable?_

“Do you remember what I said to you on our second date?” Flint said out loud. “I mean, when you asked me about the last time I let myself feel vulnerable. You must remember - you have eidetic memory.”

Silver smiled and wrapped his legs around Flint’s hips. “You said something really pretentious, babe. You said,” Silver imitated Flint’s voice, “ _Vulnerability is the privilege of the trusting._ And then you accused me of never being vulnerable in my life.”

Flint held his gaze. “You were right back then, to call me on my bullshit. I haven’t exactly been one to play the game of trust before,” he smirked and squeezed a large dollop of lube into his palm. 

“Do you want me to tell you what you were wearing?” Silver leaned back, pillowing his head on his hands. “Are you into reliving the Silver/Flint greatest hits?”

“Flint/Silver.”

“Hm… no.”

Flint laughed and stroked the hand with the lube over Silver’s partially erect cock, loving the way it immediately began to swell and grow to full hardness underneath his touch. “As you wish,” he mused. It turned out he did not much mind putting Silver before himself.

Silver let out a quiet moan and looked at Flint’s moving hand. “What are you doing?” 

“I thought it was fairly obvious.”

Flint squeezed out more lube and brought his hand back to stretch himself open for Silver’s cock. He wasn’t going to overthink this whole game of trust thing, but surely God had not given him a lover with such glorious attributes so that Flint would _not_ take full advantage of it. He wasn’t an idiot!

“Oh my god… oh my… _fuck_.” Silver, on the other hand, looked as if he might have an aneurysm just watching Flint prepare himself. Flint’s eyes fell closed and his bit his lips, rocking back against his own probing fingers. “Fuck, James, yes… Oh god, I want to feel you on my cock. Christ, you’re so gorgeous.” The endless stream running from Silver’s lips made a deep blush rise up all over Flint’s body, and he shivered with anticipation.

When he had at last deemed himself sufficiently prepared, he took care to place his thighs on each side of Silver’s hips and leaned forward to catch his lover’s lips with his own before lowering himself onto the surging column of Silver’s leaking cock.

“Aahhh!”

Both of them had let out a simultaneous gasp. Silver’s nails were digging into Flint’s shoulders, while he bore down into the cradle of his groin until he could feel the tickle of Silver’s wiry hair against his bare ass. Flint rocked back and breathed, his body throbbing with life and power.

“Oh my _god_ , you feel amazing,” he mumbled, pressing his hands into the well-defined muscles of Silver’s pecs, rolling his hips back, fucking himself on that glorious cock like he’d been made for it. The muscles of his arms and thighs vibrated from the strain as Silver lifted his hips to meet his, to fuck deeper inside him, flesh slapping lewdly against flesh. “John… John…” His name was the only coherent thought Flint was capable of; he now understood what they had meant by getting one’s brains fucked out. 

“Fucking hell, look at you…” Silver moaned. His hand strapped over Flint’s red and swollen cock. “Fucking yourself on me like that… I’ve never seen anything more beautiful. James… I’m not gonna last.” Silver shook his head, his other hand digging into Flint’s hip, likely to leave bruises there that Flint would be proud to admire in his private moments. “Come for me, baby, want to see you… _Fuck_.”

Flint had no choice but to obey, coming all over Silver’s chest and abs in thick, ropey stripes, and then slumping over him, his body spent and exhausted, careless of the mess he’d have to clean up later. His asshole clenched and pulsated around Silver’s cock as he heard Silver cry out in pleasure-agony and empty his load inside him.

The room was quiet, almost too quiet, only the sound of distant windchimes reached them through the partially opened window as they both lay sated and stuck to each other, Silver’s hair in Flint’s mouth, Silver’s hands still clasping Flint’s ass. 

After some indeterminate period of time that may as well have been a year, Flint rolled off and pulled Silver close into his own chest so he could press kisses to his messy curls.

“So,” he muttered, “about that shitshack where we’re going to live…”

“I’m sorry I called your apartment a shitshack,” Silver retorted on autopilot.

“No, forget that.”

“Hm?”

“What if I told you,” Flint’s face lit up, “that I really do know where Woodes Rogers’ stolen treasure is buried?”

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm so self-indulgent, I've also made an 8track playlist for this fic. It's all classic trip hop and you can enjoy it [here](https://8tracks.com/eldiablito/one-true-thing) if you like <3
> 
> Thanks for visiting <3

**Author's Note:**

> All done! Thanks for all your kudos and comments, they are all extremely appreciated and are like air to me. You can also come talk to me on [Tumblr](jadedbirch.tumblr.com), where I'm forever crying over Pirate Disgustoids™.


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